Dishoom Covent Garden

Dishoom Covent Garden occupies a converted 1930s printworks on Upper St Martin's Lane, one of the busiest branches of the Dishoom Irani café chain that has become one of London's most recognisable restaurant brands since the first site opened in Shoreditch in 2010. The concept recreates the Irani cafés once run by Zoroastrian immigrants across Bombay, now largely vanished from that city, translating their all-day menu of Anglo-Indian and Parsi dishes into a London setting complete with ceiling fans, bentwood chairs, and black-and-white photographs evoking 20th-century Bombay. The kitchen is known for an all-day breakfast built around the bacon naan roll, alongside the black dal that is slow-cooked for 24 hours and has become one of the most-ordered dishes across the group, and chicken tikka served with a spread of house-made chutneys. Portions are designed for sharing, and the pace of the room — brisk, warm, and constantly full — reflects the café tradition it is modelled on rather than a formal restaurant service. Breakfast and lunch are strictly walk-in, and the queue outside the Covent Garden branch, one of the group's flagship locations, regularly stretches around the block on weekend mornings; dinner reservations from 18:00 are the only bookable slots and are recommended for groups. The dining room itself spans several floors of the printworks building, with a mix of café-style tables, a bar, and private booths, giving it a livelier and louder character than the group's smaller branches. Its location in Covent Garden makes it a natural stop for theatre-goers and visitors combining a meal with the surrounding shopping and performance district.