DISHOOM have named their opening date in Manchester Hall – Thursday, December 6 with a soft launch from November 25. Perfect to generate some Christmas cheer Bombay style. Two bespoke cocktails have been created to fuel that Yule glow.
Exec chef Naved Nasir’s roll call of Indian food – including the legendary breakfast bacon naan – may be first on the Manchester bucket list but the presence of a Permit Room drinking den gives full rein to ‘Daru-walla’ Carl Brown, creator of Dishoom’s exotic tipple menu. So he has created for us these two specials.
1 Beram’s Cobbler. Named in honour of the dapper Parsi vigilante, master of disguise, and one of the stars of the Dishoom Manchester story (each of their venues is built around a back story – this one is based on a 1923 detective novel, The Tower of Silence also featuring Sexton Blake– read all about it on their website). Expect “sultry tropicality of mango and pineapple meets dry manzanilla in a transcontinental crossing’.
2 Chevalier’s Sour. Chevalier, or Chaiwala? Mysterious author of The Tower of Silence. Spicy and intricate, with raspberries, tamarind and Rangpur gin.
The setting for all this air of arcane mystery is appropriately the former Freemason’s Hall on Bridge Street, which the Dishoom designers will be transforming in homage to the old Irani cafes of Mumbai (within the restrictions of Grade II listed status). 230 covers across two dining spaces and the Permit Room.
We’ve already given you our recommendations, Five Dishes To Make You Swoon, but Naved insists we mustn’t forget one decadent dish that has been a Chef’s Special hit actoss their five London outlets and in their Edinburgh outpost – Nalli Nihari Biryani (pictured).
Nihari – a famously hearty and robust dish – is synonymous with celebration. Made into a biryani, it is doubly so, layering tender shank of lamb with rice and caramelised onions, then sealed beneath a pastry blanket. It is then enriched further with kaleji (chicken liver), raita and nihari gravy on the side.
As with all Dishoom restaurants, for every meal served at Dishoom Manchester, the team will donate a school meal to a child who would otherwise go hungry. A meal for a meal. Dishoom work with two charities – the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India and Magic Breakfast in the UK – who provide nourishing meals to children in schools. So far, Dishoom has donated over 5 million meals.
True to their ‘story’, Dishoom co-founders Shamil and Kavi Thakra and their designers pent many days in Mumbai y researching the architecture and design of the late 19th and early 20th century. Their research took them to buildings that would have set the tone of 1920s Bombay, including, naturally, the he remaining Irani cafés and the District Grand Masonic Lodge, whose floor tiles are replicated now at Manchester Hall alongside specially commissioned portraits of past District Grand Masters of Bombay. Some 150 pieces of 1920s furniture (sturdy, we hope) have been imported Now that’s attention to detail.
What is good, too, is the retention of many cherished features of the 1920s Freemasons Hall. The entrance hall still has the original marble green skirting which dates from
1929. The parquet flooring and lead-framed windows in the Front Room have been restored, while in the Dining Hall the team have retained two enormous stained-glass windows, the original ceiling and parabolic dome in the centre of the room, and three glass droplet chandeliers.
Dishoom Manchester, 32 Bridge Street. Manchester. M3 3BT. 0161 537 3737.