A combination of imagination and tradition – India Club at Gunpowder
Gunpowder, Spitalfields. Photograph courtesy of Gunpowder
A forgotten London is glimpsed as you dip away from Liverpool Street and into the warren of snaking streets. Rain and a light fog add to the medievalism, although our destination is far from archaic.
Or perhaps it is, in this fast-moving world of London restaurants?
In 2014, Harneet Baweja and his wife Devina Seth opened an unassuming little spot close to Spitalfields Market.
A Michelin Bib Gourmand followed, and head chef Jose Fernandes keeps the centre going as two more sites arise in Tower Bridge and Soho.
Heading to the heart of the matter, we cosy up at the ten tightly-placed tables for an evening of finesse and a few falters.
Mirrors and dark wood wainscoting encase the oblong room, and rather stark lights mean that every detail of the pretty food—or your dinner guest’s gaping pores—is visible.
We totter on stools by the reception area (a counter and shelf) and glimpse an even more snugly-packed kitchen through a door at the back.
This is the epitome of intimate dining. Chalkboards mark the Barnsley chops available as we settle for a boozy, ginger-ale-like gimlet and a non-alcoholic Nirvana beer.
Like an exotic trip to Lilliput, everything is miniature this evening, both charmingly and frustratingly.
Cosy: Gunpowder Spitalfields. Photograph: courtesy of Gunpowder
The space (or lack thereof), the portions (Indian tapas), and the cooking style are all crafted with care, detail, and a home-cooked feel.
The signature spicy venison and vermicelli doughnut is like an odd, hairy Scotch egg, yet with all that musky warmth of flavour within the oozing, corpulent centre.
View this post on Instagram
Dunk and roll it around in the provided fennel and chilli chutney. You won’t want to halve it, so order two for the sake of maintaining table equanimity.
Norfolk potatoes topped with tamarind, yoghurt, and black chickpeas (chaat) are a lovely pairing with the meaty sphere, mild and calming with fried lotus root for a crunch of excitement.
A pulled Chettinad duck oothappam (pancake) has a sweet, almost bourbon flavour and ribbons of carrots in some divine vinaigrette, yet again it is one small Pringle of meat to share between two growing boys.
Although the dishes remain roughly the same size throughout, the quality is a little uneven.
A tandoori saag paneer is mediocre and a little sodden, and the rice—although colourful and flecked with cumin and saffron—is far too small for two people.
Goan-style grilled prawns arrive on their own ludicrously large steel pan (considering there were only four or five), but the carmine reds and tamarind oranges of the sauce and chunks of almost disintegrating tomato are dribbled over all our other dishes: tart and sharp, pushing out the flavours as much as they push out the other plates from our comically small table.
View this post on Instagram
There is sea bass or the chalked-up Yorkshire chops to share, and some vegetarian options such as aubergine salads and egg curry masala, although vegan choices are nowhere to be seen.
A perfectly pleasant but unremarkable Old Monk rum bread-and-butter pudding finishes things off, and in true Gunpowder fashion it vanishes in about three mouthfuls per person.
The team of three front-of-house beam and bob between the claustrophobic tables with admirable agility and warmth.
Launching, heron-like, to retrieve my bag from the floor miles below our stools, I smashed my head on the table next-door (it being less than a metre away), which—although by no means anyone’s fault—did rather obscure the end of the evening for me.
Delightful at times, the space and plates could do with a little expansion (though not the price), but the combination of imagination and tradition makes Gunpowder quite the culinary loose cannon.
Gunpowder Spitalfields
11 White’s Row
E1 7NF