My favourite Indian restaurant in London. It is as relaxed as being at home, the family that run the place are always happy and welcoming and the food is so good, especially the masala dosa, papri chat and samosas. I can never decide what to order and always get too much! Oh and it’s byob.
Daniel F.
Place rating: 5 London, United Kingdom
This is a South Indian veggie restaurant. I go here most Sunday’s for lunch and. Give me local authentic food over any plush place any day of the week! the quality has never dropped. Always get the thali(with it’s generous portion it’s a must though the masala dosa is good too). And order the puri bread(my personal fav) to go with the veg which rotates each week. I grew up on this type of food and it’s just like home. It’s one of the best value food in all of London
Jules H.
Place rating: 2 London, United Kingdom
I’m not gone go back here. First of all: cash only. Secondly: bad service. The food is cheap, but the staff is just strange. Fist they ask you to write your own order. Really? So I asked the guy behind the counter a few questions to clarify it and he scolded me for interrupting his cash counting. I’m very sorry that I’m in the way. I just gone leave my money here for you to count, right? This is not the way to speak to a customer. The food in itself was ok, but not very spicy.
Hannah P.
Place rating: 4 London, United Kingdom
I have been coming here for about 5 years and the food is consistently good. I love the guys that run this place — OK so they may not be purveyors of first class service but this is a genuine place and if you get chatting to them they are lovely. Try the pumpkin paneer, the thali and aubergine curry. Also the paratha rocks. They do take away but don’t deliver and it is seriously cheap and tasty food. Cash only and you can take alcohol in.
Betcy J.
Place rating: 1 Oakland, CA
Food was not bad but the prices and the service(very rude when I asked about the price) definitely not worth it. They charged £4.50 for a masala dosa and they have a small side of chutney and sambar. Then they tricked us into paying £3.50 for an extra side of sambar which was not worth the price for proportion. No wonder there was no one in the restaurant when we walked in on a Friday at 6pm. Definitely would not recommend this place to others especially due to the poor service and rip off prices.
Neil P.
Place rating: 4 London, United Kingdom
What a gem. Had bhel poori with plain dosa. Bhel was crispy and fresh — best ive had in a while. Dosa perfect. Good value too.
Frank A.
Place rating: 5 London, United Kingdom
The food was amazing and really tasty. Don’t expect the greatest service, but with those prices it’s quite alright. Recommended for all Indian food lovers!
Iloveb
Place rating: 5 London, United Kingdom
I am a regular customer of Jai Shri Krishna, and have been for nearly 4 years. I’ve never had a bad meal there and it’s so ridiculously cheap. I love the staff they are friendly, kind and accommodating. They really get to know their regular customers they recognise my voice on the phone when I order takeaway(oh dear haha) and they are always really helpful if you need an explanation of a new dish you are thinking of trying. Disclaimer I am a vegetarian, so obviously I’m going to be more of a fan than your average carnivore. But there are some vegetarian restaurants in London that are a) a complete rip-off and b) really not that great in terms of quality. Here you have simple, great quality South Indian food which is a delight to eat and priced at a level you can’t argue with. I also took a bunch of friends for a meal there. It took me weeks to convince them as they’re all big meat eaters. But they genuinely seemed to enjoy it. I recommended the masala dosa to them as that’s a clear favourite of mine. Highly recommend.
Mazza_
Place rating: 4 Leeds, United Kingdom
As previous reviews have stated this is a fairly cheap and cheerful restaurant. The food is a wholesome and healthy vegetarian option to the westernised meaty curries that you get in most curry houses, and it’s a welcome change as far as i’m concerned. You can have your dishes customised with specific veggies that you want or made to the level of spice that you’d like. You can eat in or take away and both options are the same price, so I would recommend eating in, as the atmosphere is relaxed, the décor is simple clean and nice, and you don’t have to wash up afterwards!). You can BYOB for a small corkage fee too. The staff are friendly, they’ll have a chat with you if they’ve got time and now that me and my boyfriend go there fairly often they recognise us and ask how things are going, which is always nice. There is a strange ordering system whereby you have to write down what you’d like and bring it to the counter, but I like that because it releases you from the pressure of having a waiter incessantly asking you if you’re ready yet if you’re having trouble deciding what to have. It’s really super cheap, tasty, good food, and they do a lovely £4 Thali deal at lunch, which fills you up completely! I highly recommend!
Tom H.
Place rating: 5 London, United Kingdom
Stunningly cheap, high quality food and great service. The breads are great and we havent had a poor dish yet. Epic meals for under a tenner!
Tallulah M.
Place rating: 5 London, United Kingdom
This is my favourite Veggi place in London. Run by such nice people it is so laid back, reasonably priced and the liquor store has the best selection of booze that you can take in. I used to go weekly with my meat eating boyfriend and he said it was the one place he never even thought about missing meat. You can order a million different things and they all come out quickly and together… really good with big groups unless you are trying for a busy time. Go on a less obvious night and you can get a bottle of wine and take your time. Good for take aways as well. Really so glad i found this place. … it’s a bit of a trek off the beaten path but so worth it.
Tirthankar D.
Place rating: 2 London, United Kingdom
At various points during my two visits here, i have thought of awarding this place the entire range of ratings, from 5 stars to 1. This was a chance discovery. We were looking for a pizza hut nearby to have dinner while on a trip to wood green to watch a movie when we came across this family owned, pure vegetarian Indian restaurant. The three of us thought of giving it a try. The food was impressive. The thali had rice, a choice of roti or puri, 2 curries, dal, curd and sweets. They were served in a special plate with separate compartments for each item, ones that are very popular in hostel canteens in India. In fact the food was very homely and the ambience reminded me of my college canteen(for those readers who have studied in India, please note that this is not meant in a derogatory sense). I especially liked the tarka dal and the chhole. The special thali, which cost more, seemed inferior to the regular thali. We got the impression that the middle-aged man was the owner and his son helped him. During our first visit the place wasn’t very crowded and so it was fine. But during our 2nd visit, it wasn’t so. There were delays at every stage(in spite of the fact that they don’t take the orders anyway … the customers have to write them down on a piece of paper and give it to them). The food arrived late … we got our drinks after the meal had finished. We waited a long time for our dessert and bill(which caused us to miss the film this time). Finally we tried to pay ourselves. The excuse we were given is that they were under-staffed. In these trying economic times, that is not an excuse. If you are operating a big restaurant, then hire someone. While waiting at the counter to be accorded the privilege to pay(only cash here), my friend realised that the special thali was supposed to include ice-creams which they had conveniently forgotten about. He asked for a takeaway. We had already missed the movie, so now we weren’t in a hurry. This resulted in another round of waiting. When we got the ice-creams, my friend asked for spoons. He was told by the owner, «don’t you have spoons at home»? As if it were any of his business. This kind of behaviour is a deal-breaker for me. We won’t return to this restaurant. I am giving them 2 stars as i was initially impressed by the good food and the cheap prices(in single digits usually). This place has a lot of potential if only they improve their standards of service.
Chiara P.
Place rating: 3 London, United Kingdom
Jai Shri Krishna is a south indian vegetarian restaurant with slightly nicer décor than most of the other formica tabled establishments along the road. You write down the items you want and take it up to the counter. They does good tasty snacks e.g. idli, mogo(cassava) wedges in spicy sauce but the best deals are to be had at lunch when a masala dosa(spicy potatoes in a crispy semolina pancake) will set you back just £2.99 and a thali £3.99. I found the dosa a bit thick and chewy but the thali was delicious and almost too much food to eat.
Uli B.
Place rating: 4 Mill Valley, CA
Once again a random find… I think the entire restaurant is run by two people — a chef and a waiter. Yet the service and the quality of the food is much better than at places where waiters buzz around you like crazy and where there’s an army of chefs prepping your food. Granted, it took a little longer until the food actually got served, but I had a good book with me and was quite contend overall. Also, the food-ordering experience is quite interactive, so to speak… upon bringing the menu, the waiter gave me an empty sheet of paper along with a pen and I had to take my own order. These were the dishes that I ordered and that I would definitely recommend further: — Nut Cutlet(a patty made of nuts and served with a spicy tamarind sauce) — Jeero Aloo(basically baked potatoes with tomatoes, curry leaves and other typical Indian spices) — Daal Makhani(a lentil dish that was so creamy and so tasty… finger-licking good) –Stuffed Paratha And all that for mere 11 Pounds!!! Go, grab a few friends, take the Piccadilly Line all the way to Turnpike Lane and start your Indian Adventure in North London right now… (Btw, this is a vegetarian restaurant.)
Nick B.
Place rating: 5 IL, IL
For lovers of South Indian food this restruant is a gem. It has a great menue filled with many tasty dishes which you wont find at other indian restruants(including south indian speciality resturants like Raza in Stoke Newington). It also has great prices(5 pounds or less for an entrée) and it is BYOB(with a bottle shop right next dooor). Well worth a visit.
Edward A.
Place rating: 4 Lofthouse, United Kingdom
A night without meat?, I muttered darkly to myself, cursing my misfortune. The lamb chop in my head whispered, pleadingly, Oh Edd, what hast thou dunst?, as I confirmed with Verbanonfacta that I did indeed fancy a nice vegetarian curry. My motives were based on the wishes of a higher power, the venerable ladyfriend and her meat delusion, I had not forsaken my beloved meat, merely given it a tenner and sent it to the cinema for the night. We rolled up to Jai Shri Krishna around 7.30pm, to a waiting table and beer provided kindly by Verbanonfacta. Corkage is 20p for beer and £1 for wine, luckily there’s an off licence around the corner if you’ve turned up without alcohol(and of course want some). The restaurant is spartanly furnished, just nicely neat tables and chairs with candles and condiments. No ultra loud music to distract you from conversation or cuisine. The menu contains a wide range of vegetarian dishes, I was surprised at the variety, ranging from leafy spinach dishes to spicy paneer. The waiter who served us was nicely enthusiastic, willing to advise in choices and describe dishes I was unfamiliar with. In the end, we ordered a couple of starters and four mains between us. The starters were both delicious and fun. The Pani Puri was fun to eat, scooping onion, potato, chickpeas and tamarind sauce into the Puri then wolfing it down with a satisfying crunch. The Bhel Poori was also fun, in my ignorance I’ll say it’s a sweet curry rice crispies, the popped rice combined with a sweet tamarind sauce, mixed nuts and vegetables. As for the mains, as a chiliophile, they were a little tame for my liking(the owner did admit to taming them for fear of maiming my mouth, little did he know I actually like the pain). The chilli paneer had a little fire in it, and was cooked well, the paneer firm yet succulent. The spinach(Saag) dish we ordered was fresh tasting and subtely spiced. Butterbeans and curry aren’t the first thing to spring to my mind, but the butterbean curry, when it arrived, was a nice surprise, the creaminess of the beans blending well with the tomato and cumin. Overall, I left full and satisfied. I didn’t miss the meat and rather enjoyed trying such a variety of vegetables cooked in such differing styles. A little more fire in some of the dishes and I might have been tempted to award 5 stars, but as it stands Jai Shri Krishna earns a formidable 4 in my book.
Verban
Place rating: 4 London, United Kingdom
This vegetarian Indian restaurant offers dishes from all over India, according to the pleasant and chatty young guy who works there. The food is generally delicious, and also very cheap. I have recently enjoyed both takeaway and eaten in the restaurant. A Thali(selection platter) from there to takeaway, which consisted of: poppadom, 3 curries, 3 puri, raita, onion/tomato, rice and a little cube of dessert cost under seven quid. It also wouldn’t fit on one plate, so I had to spread it over two when I got home. Luckily it all fitted in my belly. Just. Other good things to try: Pani Puri(crispy shells which you fill with potato curry, onion, chickpeas and tamarind and another sauce and cram into your face) and the Chilli Paneer curry. Excellent stuff. My only caveat is that while it’s great to have freshly fried poppadoms, they could do with blotting them, so that they don’t turn up glistening with oil. Apparently, the previous restaurant got ruined when a water-main burst and flooded the place, so about two months ago it opened up again after an extensive refit. The interior is now smart, with high-backed wooden chairs, stripped flooring and some attractive pictures on the walls. They are not licensed, but you can bring your own for a nominal corkage fee. The owner(the older guy) seems very keen to get business. and, to be honest, he’s going the right way about it. He explained to me while I was waiting for the takeaway that they are more than happy to spice things up for those of us who like it hot, or tone it down for those who don’t. They seem to default to toning it down, so if you like it hot, it’s probably best to let them know. Prices are super low(most dishes under 4 quid), the food is very tasty, and it’s right next to Turnpike Lane Tube.