In spite of being at the end of the Jubilee line, the Regency in Queensbury, northwest London, is doing a roaring trade for a mid-week lunchtime. Before I open the blacked-out door, I can hear the sizzling sounds of the kitchen, smell the sandalwood, vanilla and clove essence and know I will be one of many to be warmly greeted by one of the veteran uniformed waiters. But despite having to book to get a table most days, this is not a restaurant but a pub where two elderly Asian drinkers sit at the bar sipping pints while others eat steaming plates of garlic mogo – cassava, boiled and fried twice – and tandoori lamb chops. In fact, this isn’t just a pub either – it’s one of London’s best desi pubs.
If you’ve never heard of a desi pub before, then you can join the ranks of many readers of my book on the subject, most pub-goers, and even my publisher, who was very sceptical when I pitched a nationwide guide a few years ago. For many, these institutions remain a mystery, and it’s worth explaining this historic phenomenon from the beginning. Put simply, desi pubs are institutions that are run by publicans who are Indian or of Indian origin like me – my father was born in Singapore but his ancestors hailed from southern India.
In reality, these pubs began opening from the 1960s onwards and were forged out of the furnace of a hostile Britain where many landlords refused to serve non-white customers or segregated them to different rooms, even giving them different glassware. The only way for these Asian drinkers to find a safe space for their community was to open up their own public houses, and they started to become common in parts of the Midlands – and most pertinently, parts of London, such as near Heathrow and the north of the city.
But what does the desi part in ‘desi pubs’ mean? The word desi rhymes with footballer ‘Lionel Messi’ and has Sanskrit origins: desh means land and country. In this case, the land and country is the homeland of India, but there are multiple interpretations of this word I’ve grown to love. Another use of desi is to describe people of Indian origin before the partition of the country in 1947 – I’m a desi, for example. An additional meaning is to lean heavily on the concept of home to allude to a homestead or the ways things were done ‘back home’ – you might hear of a cup of chai being made ‘desi-style’ in a British-Indian household for example. And in terms of restaurants or desi pubs, it’s often used to describe the chilli content of a dish – you won’t be surprised to learn that ‘desi-style’ here is super hot.
The only way for these Asian drinkers to find a space safe was to open up their own
North London (or North, North London) is home to many desi pubs that started as member clubs because licensing authorities wouldn’t trust them to serve the wider community – although these weren’t exclusive and anyone could join.
The Regency Club, where I find myself struggling to find a table on a sunny Tuesday lunchtime, opened in 1991, in a former car parts shop, and was the idea of Navin Sharma and brothers Kalpesh and Nilesh Amlani. Sharma’s son, Rahul, is now the custodian of this iconic pub.
“This was supposed to be a home away from home,” says Rahul, “For a lot of the immigrants, it was sleep, work, sleep. This was somewhere they could come to hear Bollywood music. People would walk in and feel every time that it was a reunion, and it had a social club feel to it.”
The aforementioned blacked-out door at The Regency hints at this past, where white locals might have feared a sex shop had opened, albeit one with beautiful aromas. By now, you’re probably wondering what food they offer and how they fit into London’s rich food scene. When it comes to Indian food, they nestle in between curry houses and high-end establishments, such as Ambassadors Clubhouse, which offers lamb chops for around £70 (more than four times the price of The Regency).
Mixed grill at a desi pub
David Jesudason
“Everyone was drinking and we thought: ‘let’s serve some food as well’,” Rahul says, noting how things in the 1990s were more ad hoc than today. But in 2025, Rahul oversees a professional operation where everything is curated to make sure that a diner or drinker has a perfect experience. The sandalwood, vanilla and clove essence, in fact, has been adopted so it complements the BBQ smells from the open kitchen and the welcome regular drinkers are afforded includes having their pints poured whenever they are seen entering The Regency on the CCTV behind the bar.
If you’re wondering why you’re yet to sniff out this great establishment, the reason you’ve not yet experienced the likes of The Regency will likely be because of its location, more than 16 kilometres from the centre of London. At the Gladstone in Borough, though, there’s no such excuse as the desi pub – the only one in Zone 1 – is easy to get to and has a very mixed demographic of young music types, craft beer drinkers and pie-lovers.
Yes, that’s right – pies! Brother and sister team Megha and Gaurav Khanna run a traditional boozer with a twist by serving what they call Anglo-Indian pies with fillings including chicken tikka masala, paneer makhani and goat keema. The previous owners of the pub made a big deal of pie and pints, and the Khannas continued this custom after speaking to their locals, who remain loyal to them to this day. News of their unique food and welcome – Megha and Gaurav always introduce new customers to their friendly locals – quickly spread and, since 2017, the siblings have served locals and desis alike.
Recently, these excellent examples of efficient hospitality have gained a much wider audience. “Your book gave us a lot of traction,” says Megha, “and central London makes us more accessible. But I also think it’s because we’re the only Indian pub in London with an Indian landlady.”
They serve Anglo-Indian pies filled with chicken tikka masala and paneer makhani
I love the Glad, as it’s called by regulars. Megha and Gaurav are almost like family to me and I think it’s an easy sell. However, before my book was published this was not only an overlooked desi pub in London but an overlooked pub in Borough with many travel and leisure pieces pointing drinkers to nearby pubs; despite its unique food, warm welcome, and wonderful interiors, which draw on both Victorian and desi influences. I attribute this to how those working in the media – especially in leisure – lack diversity, with 93% of editors being white, according to a recent National Union of Journalists (NUJ) study.
But Megha, who works on the frontline, has a different take and says that desi pubs are often owner-run businesses which don’t have the time to foster a strong social media presence or give interviews, which in turn generate new customer bases. Some newer desi pubs, such as Three Falcons in Edgware Road, which opened in 2019, and Tamil Prince in Islington, which opened in 2022, do have a marketing spend and, consequently, a lot of influencers have filmed reels there detailing how they’re “the first Indian pubs”.
While I did include both Three Falcons and Tamil Prince in my book, these two establishments lean on being trendy dining spaces in a way that can come at the expense of the social cohesion that traditional desi pubs offer.
Megha tells me that the only occasion during which an influencer got in touch with The Glad, they booked a table but never showed up. “I haven’t had much time to look into influencers,” Megha admits, “but since your book was published and TV got involved the desi pub scene is becoming a big deal. It’s becoming a trendy situation and people are talking about it as well.”
Pouring a pint of Guinness
David Jesudason
I’m not used to creating a scene in a positive sense, but if new people visit these diverse spaces for the first time, then I’ve done my job well. One of the best parts of getting this guidebook published was seeing the number of journeys people undertook to places, like Southall, which were unfamiliar to them. The pub I feature in that majority-Asian area doesn’t seem glamorous; in fact, it’s a post-war functional building deep in a residential area near Heathrow airport. But The Scotsman had one selling point that caused hundreds of people to jump on the Elizabeth Line – a jumbo naan hanging from a hook like a doughy ‘catch of the day’.
Its food is glorious, with sizzling grills and plate after plate of chicken lollipops being handed to patrons, and once people visited The Scotsman for the first time they really got desi pubs. Especially as this was a formerly racist space that had a white landlord who segregated customers well into the 1990s. I only discovered this shocking instance of prejudice after visiting on numerous occasions to gain publican and chef Shinda Mahal’s confidence. It was also difficult, as Megha mentioned, for an owner like him to find a spare moment for an interview as he has a long working day which starts with marinating meats and ends when the last drinker leaves.
“They didn’t allow us in the 1980s and in the 1990s we were only allowed in one side of the pub,” he revealed. Shinda’s testimony is important as it shows how influencers and TikTokers might view desi pubs as a “trendy scene”, but they are more than just a fad. British-Indians, like Shinda, fought for the right to serve jumbo naans to their community, and their food, culture and hospitality have enriched Britain. I want them to stay forever as a shining beacon of how we can celebrate each other’s cultures.
Now it might be that you now want to ‘discover’ them yourself, which I implore you to do – you’ll love the food, the chat, the welcome. But most of all, I encourage you to ponder how these exquisite grills and naans are an expression of Asian resistance in the face of white supremacy. Because London’s desi pubs show the world the best of India and the best of Britain.
Desi Pubs: A guide to British-Indian Pubs, Food and Culture was published by CAMRA Books in 2023
