But for those who haven’t visited, in your own words, how do you describe the concept?ĭishoom was born from an observation that in the UK, at one level, you have high-end restaurants, which are great. What’s incredible about Dishoom is that whenever a friend posts on social media asking where to go in London, it’s always one of the first replies, often in all-caps with multiple exclamation points. We’ll make sure we look after our customers, look after our people - that’s the priority. The business is in decent financial health, so I think we’ll navigate through. The last one is a sort of lockdown, Italian scenario. The second is a more serious, significant downturn.
We’ve created a few different scenarios by which to plan. So I think we’ll see a much more significant drop-off over the coming weeks and months. I’m fully expecting people to make more decisions about staying home. We’ve seen a small drop-off in trade - about 5%, not significant - so it could even be week-on-week. Shamil Thakrar: It’s held up pretty well. What follows is a lightly edited, condensed transcript of our conversation.ĭan Frommer: How has the last week been, and how are you thinking about Covid-19? (Note: We spoke on Monday, March 9.) But I found his approach genuine and unique, and appreciate the results. Thakrar, a former Bain consultant with a Harvard MBA, seems an unlikely restaurateur. Walking into one, such as the giant King’s Cross location, with a long marble bar and multiple balconies, feels like entering another world - the sign of effective interior design and storytelling.Īnd over more than half a decade of regular visits whenever I’m in London, even as the group has added more restaurants - it’s now opening its eighth in Birmingham - Dishoom seems to have maintained, or even improved, its quality, while generating a profit.Īfter a morning chai at Dishoom’s Shoreditch restaurant, Shamil Thakrar (pictured left, with Kavi right) and I walked across the street to the company’s headquarters to chat about running a hospitality group in 2020, how Dishoom builds its company culture, tells its story through design and media, how it responds to the changing consumer, and whether it will ever open in the US (perhaps eventually!). Its restaurants, serving a smart take on Indian food and drink, always seem impossibly busy - the group serves 50,000 customers per week. (Business had only declined slightly that week, but - like all restaurants - it’s in for unprecedented times now.)ĭishoom, founded in 2010 by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, has become one of the UK’s top modern brands. A 90-minute(!) wait, we were quoted, even as coronavirus anxiety had started to set in. We rolled our bags up the hill, excited by the prospects of grilled chicken tikka and gunpowder potatoes, and turned the corner at Coal Drops Yard - to see a massive queue.
Arriving in London last Saturday night via Eurostar, our first thought was dinner: Oh, yes! There’s a Dishoom at King’s Cross.
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