This award-winning restaurant in South Woodford, London, celebrates the dishes cooked and enjoyed along the Grand Trunk Road, which stretches from Bangladesh to Afghanistan.
Every region of India has countless local recipes, dishes, ingredients and flavours, making the term ‘Indian’ when describing the country’s cuisine as vague as ‘Asian’ or ‘European’. This means Indian restaurants tend to go two ways – either focus on the Anglicised dishes that everyone in the UK knows, or deep-dive into a particular regional cuisine and showcase the flavours of that area. In 2016, chef Dayashankar Sharma and owner Rajesh Suri decided to go a different route (quite literally) – by opening a restaurant that celebrates the dishes eaten along a 2,000-mile road that connects Kabul in Afghanistan, goes through India and Pakistan, then finishes in Bangladesh.
Grand Trunk Road is in South Woodford – a little further out than the duo’s previous experience in the Michelin-starred Indian restaurants of Mayfair and Kensington – but it has attracted a huge number of fans both near and far for its food. With a simply laid out menu of starters, grilled dishes, mains, sides and desserts, guests can try as much or as little as they want in the beautiful dining room.
The menu is a mix of more familiar dishes – aloo tikki, dum biryani, Amritsari butter chicken – and lesser-known (in the UK) specialities, such as bottle gourd dumplings, monkfish rubbed in mustard, dill and lemongrass, or Punjabi grilled chicken. Desserts aren’t to be missed either, with rose petal and avocado ice cream, jaggery and coconut flan and mango brûlée with ajwain biscuits. The drinks menu is extensive, with plenty of bespoke cocktails, wines and spirits, plus non-alcoholic cocktails and lassis.
219 High Road, South Woodford, London, E18 2PB
