Masala Zone

A thali held to one standard

The thali is assembled as a full meal, not a garnish around a curry. Camellia Panjabi, Chef at Masala Zone in London, keeps that discipline close to the room. Her work with MW Eat sits behind a group of Indian restaurants that treat flavour, presentation, and setting as one brief, rather than separate departments. At Masala Zone, that brief takes a more informal form than at its fine-dining siblings, but the hand is recognisable: regional cooking, street food, home-style dishes, and a dining room with enough ceremony to slow the table down.

Panjabi studied at University of Cambridge and later became central to how Indian dining was presented in London through MW Eat. She co-founded Chutney Mary in 1990, and her wider role as culinary director has included Amaya, Chutney Mary, Masala Zone, and Veeraswamy. Masala Zone was pioneered with Namita Panjabi and Ranjit Mathrani, after the group had already begun changing the expectations placed on Indian restaurants in the city. The first Masala Zone opened in Soho in 2001, in the former Cranks site between Regent Street and Soho, with a proposition that was direct: proper Indian food, drawn from homes, streets, and regions, served without losing its edge.

Street food, thalis, grills, biryanis

The menu architecture is broad but not loose. Chaats and samosas sit beside thalis, grills, curries, biryanis, and regional specials; the point is range, held by a common grammar of masala, acidity, heat, grain, pulse, and bread. The thali carries much of the method. One published description gives the curry portion as 4oz, placed with vegetables, lentils, rice, papad, and chutney, so the plate reads as a sequence rather than a single centrepiece.

Butter chicken is made with thigh meat, a decision that matters at the bench because texture and fat carry the sauce differently than breast meat. Chicken 65, Delhi samosa chaat, lamb biryani, butter chicken thali, Peshwari naan, and lamb sliders have become signatures across the group’s London rooms. The West Coast India menu added another layer, moving through Gujarat, Konkan, Goa, Malabar, and Kerala with dishes such as Mandvi Dabeli, Goan spiced crab cake with vindaloo mayo, Karwari crispy fried prawns with mango chutney, Malabari Moplah lamb biryani, and Alleppey prawn curry with raw mango. The house also works with masala chai, lassi, cocktails, and a standard wine program, but the food leads the rhythm.

Puppets above the tables

The room is part of the craft here. Masala Zone’s London sites have varied décors, yet the signature atmosphere is theatrical in a controlled way: Rajasthani puppets overhead, ornate wooden temple doors, candlelit tables, linen napkins, and a palace-like density that can turn lively when the room fills. It is not a quiet laboratory. Plates move across the pass into a room built for families, tourists, regulars, and central London tables that want the breadth of Indian cooking without a lecture.

That setting matters because Masala Zone was never only a menu idea. By 2005 the group had expanded to Earls Court, with later rooms in Covent Garden, Camden Town, and Islington, and the 2016-2017 rebrand raised the polish of the informal format. The 2023 Piccadilly Circus opening placed the program inside the 1873 Criterion site, a room with its own architectural weight. The craft is a thali, a bowl of dal, a papad, and the Rajasthani puppets above Masala Zone.