Masalchi by Atul Kochhar, 2 Wembley Park Blvd, Wembley HA9 0HP (020 8634 8181). Half plates £4-£7.50; large plates £6-£14; desserts £4.50; wines from £24; cobra beer £6.50 a pint
In the middle of October, the Indian chef Atul Kochhar opened a massively spendy and also quite simply massive restaurant called Mathura, inside what was formerly the Westminster fire station. It offers a tasting menu at £110 or an à la carte with starters at around £20 each. Many of the main courses are more than £40, including a wagyu fillet with 24ct gold leaf at £85 because, as we know, sigh, eating gold leaf is a thing. These days the only fires to be dealt with by this building are credit cards spontaneously combusting.
The launch could be taken as an act of great bravery. I’m not so sure. There are lots of restaurants in central London charging big-ticket prices right now and they all seem to be full; mostly with the sort of people you could never tire of poking with the sharp end of an unsanitary stick. Prices have also increased recently, by as much as 20% against pre-pandemic levels in some places. And yet what all the chefs and restaurateurs I’ve spoken to tell me is that, while there may be staff shortages, there is no shortage of customers. Kochhar will doubtless find plenty of takers for that £85 gold-flecked wagyu, even if I’m not among them.
Just five days after he opened Mathura, Kochhar opened a second restaurant, nine miles or so to the northwest, in Wembley. Masalchi, which roughly translates as “spice master”, is so close to the stadium that on match days diners will be able to hear the crowd sigh with disappointment when a goal is missed. It is, I think, the really brave venture. Partly it’s the scale. This is a big old beast of a glass-walled room, which can seat 120. There are huge square pillars tiled in iridescent shades of blue and gold, and a ceiling clad in blond wood strips. It has something of the canteen about it.
It’s also keenly priced. The menu starts with a long list of what they call half plates, many of which cost less than a fiver. Why they can’t be called “small” plates, I don’t know. Small is a word I understand. Half just makes me want to ask “of what?” Alongside those are bigger dishes at between £6 and £12. It will therefore have to make its money on volume. That means it can not simply depend on crowds looking for something to eat before watching their team lose in the stadium next door, or before being waltzed into dribbling unconsciousness by the weird dinner-jacketed and bow-tied personality cult that is André Rieu and his Orchestra at the SSE Wembley Arena, who play on 18 May 2022. As you didn’t ask.
The fact is it needs locals to come and keep coming. Which is where it gets interesting. Wembley is a focus for the capital’s Indian community. Masalchi is surrounded by brilliant, cheap and often long-established restaurants, representing various parts of the subcontinent’s culinary traditions: places like Sakonis, Goan Spice Café and Restaurant, and Pradip’s. If his kitchen gets it wrong, the Indian community, who are here in force tonight, will quickly let him know. It may be to Masalchi’s benefit then that, instead of a tight geographical frame, it takes its inspiration from street food across the entirety of the Indian subcontinent, with origins often explicitly described.
Come here for a bit of everything, because that’s what you get. Expect uncompromising fire and depth, and to recall what you ate for a few hours afterwards. Regard mask wearing after the meal as a joyous way by which to extend the experience as you breathe and rebreathe your dinner. Two-thirds of the half plates happen to be vegan; these dishes always were meat- and dairy-free. From Uttar Pradesh there’s aloo kachori, the carb-on-carb fest of crisp bread pockets filled with potato curry, then gloriously swamped in more of the same, and there’s the textural joy of sundal, a warm south Indian salad of coconut, peanuts and chickpeas. A pile of disc-shaped poori with a turnip and carrot pickle fails to grab our attention.
From Chennai comes a plate of the deeply spiced and fried chicken 65, with dry-fried chillies. Depending on the source you use, it’s named because of its origins in 1965 at the Buhari Hotel or, rather less persuasively, because of the 65 chilli peppers involved, or the 65 pieces of chicken it demands. Origin stories like this are only really interesting if the dish is any good and this is. It’s fried chicken in mighty steel toe-capped boots.
The list of grills includes Lahori lamb chops. If what you crave, if what you really hunger after, is the hand-on-bone action of dark and crusted lamb chops, this is not the place for you. Go to Gifto’s Lahore Karahi in Southall or one of the Mirch Masalas or, of course, Tayyabs in Whitechapel. (Other Pakistani grill houses are always available.) But as part of a menu drawing on a whole bunch of different traditions of which these fat-cut lamb chops can be a part, they are more than agreeable. Here, for example, they get to sit alongside a light and soft fish curry from Southern India and, from Lucknow, an enormously engaging bowl of mutton keema (or mince) with potatoes. It’s pure comfort food for grownups.
We have foregone bread and rice, for fear it will dent the space that could otherwise be used for more pressing dishes. With this bowlful I do miss a naan. Oh well. I’ll just have to spoon it away neat. I’m good at jobs like that. A smoky side of roasted and mashed aubergine, bold with acidity and chilli, helps with this noble task.
The dessert menu includes gulab jamun, those rose syrup-drenched golden dumplings, guaranteed to ease away the more intense flavours. I assume there’s a handbook somewhere that insists they must be included on a menu like this. They’re absolutely fine. More refreshingly, there are sweet, juicy chunks of pineapple deeply charred from a trip through the tandoor, across which the pristine white of a coconut sorbet gently melts. Cobra and Malabar are available by the pint and there’s an entirely serviceable list of wines and cocktails. There’s also a menu for those who, for dietary or cultural reasons, do not eat alliums.
Until now Atul Kochhar has been a chef who has swum only in the deep waters of high-end Indian food. This is his first casual spot. I suspect it won’t be his last.
News bites
The restaurant sector is reporting rampant cancellations following the introduction of new Plan B Covid restrictions and concerns over the Omicron variant. Now Sacha Lord, Greater Manchester’s night-time economy adviser, has launched a campaign calling on Chancellor Rishi Sunak not to return hospitality to the full 20% vat rate. It’s currently at 12.5%, a rise from the emergency 5% level introduced in July 2020. According to Lord if the rise goes ahead it could result in 120,000 job losses due to business failures.
The latest restaurant operator to celebrate their environmental credentials is Boparan Restaurant Group which has Carluccio’s, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Giraffe, among others. They’ve announced they are now carbon neutral. Like a number of operators who have made similar announcements, they are offsetting all their direct emissions. Critics have pointed out this is merely mitigating impact, rather than actual de-carbonising. However, they say they have been using renewable sources of energy across the estate since 2019.
Adam Breeden, co-founder of restaurant groups themed around sports like bowling (All Star Lanes), darts (Flight Club) and ping pong (Bounce), has announced a new venture, combining a food and drink offering with digital race simulations. The first will be in the One New Change retail development in the City of London. Meanwhile, Norwich is to get Putt Putt Noodle, an Asian-inspired restaurant built around crazy golf. Frankly, I find just typing these words exhausting. Newsbites will now take a rest until 9 January.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
