Naved Nasir

The Idea

Bombay is the organising reference here: a real melting-pot community, with food that takes in Irani café influence and the wider cross-currents of the city’s eating culture. In Naved Nasir’s framing, the menu does not narrow Indian cooking down to a single style; it works across the city’s diverse foodways and names its influences plainly. The kitchen also takes a practical view of the body and the table. Naved Nasir’s line — “Most Indian food is naturally gluten-free” — keeps the point direct: this cooking does not need to be recast to fit contemporary diners.

The Execution

Gunpowder potatoes show the kitchen working in a direct, repeatable register: spiced, clear in intent, and built to land quickly. Chilli cheese toast sits alongside it in the same mode, compact and immediate, with a name that leaves little doubt about the flavour path. Lamb boti kabab completes the set of signatures associated with Naved Nasir’s kitchen.

On the Record

The work runs through Dishoom, where the menu is defined by Bombay-inspired food and by its draw toward favourite Irani cafés. That is the through-line in Naved Nasir’s professional context: a kitchen speaking in the vocabulary of a specific city’s café culture rather than in generic “Indian” terms. The clearest statements here do not perform; they frame the cooking’s logic.

Signature

Naved's signature dishes include Chicken Berry Biryani, Keema Pau, Dishoom's gunpowder potatoes, Dishoom's chilli cheese toast, and Dishoom's lamb boti kabab.

In Their Words “Our food is also inspired more broadly by the food of Bombay — a real melting-pot community — and our menu brings together its diverse cultural influences.” “Dishoom tries to bring a little of the spirit of these old Bombay cafés to London, and our menu takes inspiration from our favourite Irani cafes.”