Masala Zone

I’ve been to Masala Zone on multiple occasions and the food and service have always been good. Sure, sometimes it’s REALLY busy and you may need to wait a little bit, but overall the service is very good.
To be honest, I still don’t really understand how to order the Thalis, but whatever does come out is always yummy. We tried the shrimp curry and it was delicious. I love all the options you have with a Thali. The flavors are always so diverse and interesting.
One of my favorite appetizers is the dahi puri– it’s like this spicy puff filled with cool yogurt. AH! SO GOOD! And the mango sorbet is a delicious finish to any meal.
On another occasion we decided against the Thalis and just ordered curry. They were also good but I think we’ve learned we can’t handle heat as much as we thought we could ;)

NEVER ORDER FOR DELIVERY!!!
Unless you want the food to come 1.5 hours later and cold!!! Except the mango lassi was hot and thrown away.

Terrible service, subpar food. Samosas and chicken tikka were below average, sev puri and chicken 65 were ok, but garlic naan was good.
Unfortunately, I had to ask three times before I got chutneys and they never refilled our water. Disappointing experience, will not be back.

Bad customer service, rude server. Food mediocre. Can get this somewhere else for half the price.

4.5 stars — Side of dal
4.5 stars — Chickpeas with lotus root and bread, even though it didn’t have any lotus roots in it
5 stars — Side of potatoes — it was made with spinach
4 stars — Chili paneer
4 stars — Side of White Pumpkin (lauki/​dudhi
3.5 stars — Side of Spinach. Wish it was less greasy.

Good for the price. Butter chicken is spicy but not too much. Chicken samosas are good.

We stopped in here after visiting the Royal Opera House, which is literally around the corner. My friend and I are complete Indian food enthusiasts, so it was a must when traveling in London. I’m so glad we stumbled upon Massala Zone! Affordable and delicious Indian in a fun atmosphere. We had chicken briyani, naan, and green curry and all were excellent. Four stars only because our server was extremely unfriendly. We will probably be back.

Excellent resto indien. Service super sympa avec une attention particulière pour les enfants. Curry juste épicé comme il faut et plats copieux.

Wow. Wonderful Indian food. I’m not the biggest fan of Indian good, but I was really impressed with every dish (may except for the stewed lentils). I came with a group of 5 friends around 8 on a Thursday. Since Masala is large and spacious, we were quickly seated.
Based on Unilocal photos, I decided to opt for a curry. I forget what it’s called, but it was spicy (two chilies on the menu) but with nice coconut-​y undertones and with large pieces of dark meat chicken. The curry doesn’t come with rice, so I ordered some Yellow lemony-​Jasmine rice which was perfectly seasoned, spiced, and I even found a roasted lemon rind mixed inside.
I tried my friend’s Butter Chicken curry, which was a different type of spicy. Not in the sense of hot-​spicy, but more like a flavorful, almost sweet spicy. She ordered garlic naan on the side, which came out slightly fluffy, fresh and warm. Other friends ordered the Thalis, which are definitely meant to be shared. I sampled their small side dishes — the lentil stew was mediocre but everything else was great. Also, good service!
Tl;dr — authentic, affordable Indian food in Soho.

I have visited the Bayswater location twice and had a fabulous experience. The food was excellent, including the kabobs, butter chicken, rogan josh, thali, pav bhaji, chaat, etc. however, I had a terrible experience at this location.
Yesterday, I came to this location for dinner. After a wait, we were seated and I ordered a lassi and then lamb seekh kabob and garlic naan. After 20 min, the kabob came out but the naan did NOT. After failing to get a waiters attention, I finally flagged one down and told her about the naan. She noted it and then continued working. 15 min later, still no naan.
I finally flagged another server and she said she’d get us a naan. 10 min later, the naan showed up. It was flat, doughy, undercooked, and there was NO garlic. If you order garlic naan and you are being charged EXTRA for it being a garlic naan, there better actually be some garlic! And this wasn’t a naan! This was a doughy chapati! And I know Masala Zone can do better since I had a good naan at the Bayswater location. I finally got the attention of the original server and asked him to send it back. He apologized briefly and offered to get me another one and check with the kitchen. 10 min later he finally came back and just said «apologies for the naan» and then went off again.
We wanted the bill but the servers did not come by for another 10 min. Finally he came over and explained that he hadn’t charged us for the naan and he had taken off the service charge. I was very disappointed by the customer service at this location and I probably won’t be coming back. It’s a shame.

Everything top notch, reasonably priced (esp. for that pat of London), great service. Very happy indeed! The Grand Thali was truly grand and beautiful to look at.

Est-​on déçu si l’on cherche un indien à Londres en entrant dans un restaurant de la chaîné Masala Zone? La réponse est non, non, non, encore non et toujours non. Ils restent mon adresse préférée pour un bon poulet curry, un naan cuit à souhait…
Ils proposent également de gros plats appelés Thali avec la totale: viande, riz, naan ou papadum, et quelques bols de légumes, sauces… De quoi rassasier les plus gourmands.
Le service est toujours plutôt rapide et sympathique. Prix raisonnable, et on est sûr de bien manger!

C’est une super adresse ! Nous sommes tombés dessus un peu par hasard lorsque nous baladions à Soho. Je voulais manger indien à Londres depuis quelques jours et ce restaurant tombait à point nommé !
Le personnel est vraiment sympathique et de très bon conseil. La serveuse n’a pas hésité à me faire goûter 2 sauces différentes pour être sûre que je supporterai bien les épices alors que j’hésitais entre 2 plats.
J’ai donc dégusté unThali servi dans un joli plateau, je me suis régalée !
Je vous conseille également de prendre un Bombay Ice Tea, ce cocktail est une véritable tuerie.
Niveau décoration, la salle est vaste et plutôt moderne. J’ai beaucoup apprécié le côté épuré, pas de détails kitschs à l’horizon, c’est plutôt appréciable :)

I was a little weary of coming here since I heard it was a chain restaurant. Boy was I wrong. It was a beautiful restaurant and when you first walk in, the wonderful smell of the Indian food was enough to make get rid of my doubts of this place. We ordered the thali and the grilled chicken. I ordered the Indian yoghurt drink and it tasted great. The food was amazing and everything was perfectly flavored. It was proportionate and filling. The service was good. A reservation is probably a good idea for this location since it was packed before 8 pm on a Saturday night.

Came here on the recommendation of Rick Steve’s London guide. Mind you, he’s not that type of a traveler that knows good food. However, taking his advice on this chain while being in the neighborhood was a pleasant suprise.
Masala Zone are a chain of retaurants with various themes, this one having the theme of an Indian marriage with close to 100 vibrant puppets from Rajasthan suspended from the ceilings. Definitely a great conversation starter.
Menu is vast, but I went straight for one of the Thalis combo. I love my favorite Indian place in Glendale that does a great job on Northern Indian Thalis, so I had to see if this one stood up to it.
I went with the The Grand Thali, which is equal to a starter and main course combined. It comprises a Canapé, a choice of curry, 2 vegetables (one green and one root), Dal (lentil), Raita (yoghurt), Indian salad, Papadum & Chutney, freshly-​made whole wheat Chapatti (Indian bread) & Rice. You get to choose the meat. Be forewarned that when you say mild, it’s VERY mild. You won’t drip one bit of sweat at all. If you’re like me and like to actually taste some spice in your food, medium should be good. Anywho, as noted on their website, the etiquette of eating a Thali is to spoon a small portion of food from an individual dish into the area next to the rice, and then combine it with the rice. Repeat this process in sequence. This enables the flavour of each dish to be appreciated individually. Do not either mix more than one dish simultaneously with the rice, or mix the rice in the individual bowls. Chapattis are eaten with the food by using a piece of chapatti to scoop the food from one of the dishes.
For a chain restaurant, the Thali was great and a good portion. It’s not «home made» Indian food, but it’s food that’s tasty and you can try different combos. After walking an entire day around London, this did the job for a casual sit down. Definitely make a reservation if you’re going to eat at 6pm and after or be prepared to wait and wait at this location.

My mom and I are on our first day to London, we heard the indians were supposed to be pretty good here so when we were given a leaflet at 7pm for an indian we decided to try it. To put it in a nutshell:
–great service, really fast and nice
–great food, I recommend the grand thali which enables you to try different things
–not too expensive

Good food in a modern setting. They have a nice ledge over looking the kitchen that is good if you are dining by yourself. I had the chicken curry and vegetable curry. Both were good but I would have preferred it if they had a little more flavor, I thought they were on the mild side, although I normally like a lot of spice.

I went here on a recommendation from a friend of mine that has, what I’d perceived to be, excellent taste in the culinary arts, but now, I’m really starting to question that assumption. I head things like «it’s really good» and «there are clearly Indians making the food *and* eating there…». I guess I should have asked for more elaborate descriptions.
For a chain (famous last words), it’s good. Better than just okay. You walk into the restaurant and it’s undeniably aromatic, fresh spice and charred goodness emanating from the tandoor. Your palate whet with anticipation.
My date and I dined on the Dari Puri and Goan Crispy Prawns to start. I didn’t detect any chickpea in the Dari Puri, nor any chutney (perhaps it was the drizzle), but there was sure a mouthful of yogurt. The Goan Crispy Prawns were more crispy than prawn, and tremendously greasy. For our mains we had the Paneer Makhanwalla and Roghan Josh. Both mediocre, lacking the signature depth that we’ve all come to know and love from Indian cuisine, and falling a bit flat. The portion size was also slightly less than satiating.
Moral of the story: in a pinch, lack of similar alternatives, and need to get away from the hustle and bustle of Oxford and Regent, duck in here… it won’t be offensive.

Cheese Naam was great, garlic naam — ok, regular Thali and grand Thali trays with chicken were pretty good.
The main con: service was a bit slow.

Three stars indicates just ok, but let’s be clear, I actually like the food here just fine. It’s not your momma’s cooking, no, but it’s fresh, clean-​tasting, and everything actually tastes different (you know the ol’ takeaway curry joint trick of making a giant vat of bland base gravy and then just adding a dash of tomato paste, saag, spices, etc to make it into separate dishes, yeah? yeah, this place doesn’t do that, as far as I can tell).
I would say that the stand-​out dishes are almost exclusively the veg ones. Chicken tends to be a little dry and tired; lamb tends to be only ok. The veggie offerings are really quite nice, with a good range of starches and pulses and some solid paneer-​based offerings.
Thalis are a good size.
So why the three stars? Primarily it comes down to price. Yeah, you can come in, get just a veg thali (£11.15) and their cheapest drink (tea or filter coffee, I believe, at £1.80) and have lunch for £14.57 when you add in gratuity. But that’s an expensive lunch for Soho when you can get a solid, fresh falafel wrap etc for under £7 with a drink around the corner. And let’s be real, you don’t want just the thali: you want to try the appetisers (all sadly overpriced and not good value for the size, also generally underwhelming in terms of taste) and have a drink (also expensive), and maybe tack on a second curry to pad out your thali (£3.50).
The last time we went (yesterday, actually), we dropped just under £60 – ouch! – for lunch: lassi, iced tea, thali with extra curry, a curry main, two appetisers, two desserts (both of which were awful), a tea, and a coffee.
What gets my (roast) goat here is that the pricing always feels vaguely like a scam about to happen. It’s always a little different; this time it was «If you order a main and a drink, it’s 20% off!» Hey, that sounds really good– no, wait. «The 20% off is already reflected in the menu. If you want the full-​price menu, we can offer it.» What even is this? Seriously, guys. It’s not classy, and your poor servers have to keep explaining it like it’s reasonable. Don’t do it. Just admit your food is grossly overpriced and then offer a discount from the price you want to charge, if that’s what you’re after.
Food also does take forever to come out. Granted, yeah, things are being made mostly to order, but let’s be real, the kitchen doesn’t hustle, and there’s no excuse for dessert (pre-​made sweets and a lump of ice cream) taking 15 minutes to appear. Basically, you can’t just nip in for a quick lunch here. Set aside two and a half hours.
I don’t hate this place, though I do sort of hate how it’s structured. But after this last wallet-​searing experience, I’m done. I really am. So, how about it, fellow Unilocalers: is there a decent Indian place anywhere near-​ish to Soho?

I usually go for grubbier Indian joints where I don’t even quite care what cut of meat or animal is being slapped into the curry sauce, so Masala Zone was very «Oh, I see, we are properly in the West. Carry on.»
Not that it’s a super fancy place, but it’s clean, shiny, and you certainly don’t smell that pungent oily fog of curry that permeates your clothes for days after.
Many of us opted for the thalis, which is the usual order for indecisive people like myself. Why have one dish when you can opt for like nine things on a big silver platter. You have a choice of GRAND and regular, so being American, I of course supersized mine, so the thali gained kachumber (tomato & onion salad), raita, and an appetizer. Both types of thalis have a choice of meat curry, two veg curries (root & leaf), chapati, rice, and papadum.
The fish curry was fine as my main, though it could have used a kick in the spice levels. The chutneys and side sauces were on the blander side as well, but still mighty tasty. This might be an issue of getting used to more subtle flavors versus the sodium assaults of the curry houses I usually frequent.
Great place for large groups of hunger diners since we were a group of eleven and were seated immediately, right around dinner time on a weekend.

I think its the best indian food I had during my stay in London. The restaurant has a unique atmosphere, in comparison with other indian restaurants. The food is really delicious and esp. the starters ware very good and different from any indian restaurant i have been to.

This chain is still doing great Thalis after all these years! Prices have definitely gone up, but still OK. Portions are big, food is delicious, and not as oily or fatty as your «local».
Service at this branch was slow though, even though it was a Tuesday evening.

Une très bonne adresse pour manger indien à londres découvert grâce à un guide. Et bien j’approuve les Thalis (mezzés indiens) sont excellents on peut goûter à tout en petites quantités. Le service est accueillant le décor n’a rien d’extraordinaire mais on né vient pour cela donc rien à dire de plus.

Très bon indien, choix immense, sale pas forcément des plus accueillantes mais globalement, vraiment, vraiment bien (et puis les prix sont doux)

excellent restaurant indien. le cadre n attire pas forcément mais les mets sont délicieux. la propreté des lieux est remarquable. demandé le thali

Indische Küche zu günstigen Preisen; interessante Street-​Food-​Snacks. Probiert bitte ein indisches Sandwich oder eine Thali-​Kombination: Hühnchen-​, Lamm-​, Krabben– oder vegetarisches Curry, Gemüse, Reis, poppadums, Linsenpüree.

J’ai découvert ce restaurant grace un livre spécial WE à Londres, et je né regrette pas du tout!
Le personnel est tres sympa et explique au maximum les plats.
Pour ma part j’ai pris la formule Thali au poulet, et c’etait tres bon, et tres copieux!
Attention quand meme j’ai pris la formule peu épicé et je peux vous assurer que c’etait deja pas mal, donc tres épicé doit etre quelque chose!
Pour ce qui est du prix, c’est à la porté de tous.

Erstes mal indisch essen gewesen und volltreffer! Bedienungen waren super freundlich und haben auch erklärt was man gerade bekommt. Hatten 2 lunch-​menüs (je eine kleine vorspeise und je 1 hauptgang) die preislich ziemlich günstig waren für die qualität. Wenn wir wieder in london sind, werden wir auch wieder dort einkehren.

Wir waren total begeistert. Sehr leckeres Essen, nette Bedienung und das quirlige Ambiente macht richtig Spaß. Bei unserem nächsten Besuch in London werden wir garantiert noch mal hingehen.

Masala Zone ist eine indische Lokalkette in London
Ich war bis jetzt vier Mal hier und wurde noch nie enttäuscht.Sehr gut sind die Thali, da
man da von allem ein bissig bekommt. Ich bestelle mir
Immer Reis und ein extra NAAN um die curries vollständig aufzutunken. Sehr gut ist das Mango Lassi das jedoch sehr sättigend ist. Für Touristen die die Englische Küche genauso schätzen wie ich eine sehr gute Alternative.

He estado aquí cuatro veces ahora — siempre excelente. En comparación con otras ciudades que he vivido, buenos restaurantes indios en Londres son difíciles de encontrar (a pesar de que hay cientos de ellos). El ambiente es muy diferente de la mayoría de los restaurantes indios — tal vez más en forma de cadena, pero inofensivo (y muchas veces animada). Hay una clara visión de las cocinas, que se ven impecables y bien administrada. El servicio fue entusiasta, y hay algunas novedades inusual y delicioso en el menú, que los camareros estaban ansiosos de señalar. Un gran almuerzo a un precio razonable si usted está en la zona de Carnaby St.

Ein gutes Preis-​Leistungsverhältnis, d.h. die Portionen sind ordentlich und im Vergleich zu den Pubs oder Sandwichketten schmeckt es allemal besser. Der Service war ebenfalls ok und wenn man sich nicht allzu viel aus Ambiente macht, ist dieses Restaurant sehr empfehlenswert.
Abzüge in der Wertung gab es vor allem dafür, dass das Essen ruhig hätte wärmer sein dürfen, sonst wären sicherlich auch 4 Sterne drin gewesen.

Indische Restaurants gibt es in London wie Sand am Meer.
Leider gibt es auch riesige Qualitätsunterschiede. Das Masala Zone ist eines der guten und (für Londoner Verhältnisse) günstigen seiner Art. Wir wurden ausgesprochen freundlich bedient (auch als wir samt Essen der Klimaanlage entkommen wollten, war man sofort zur Stelle und hat uns nicht mal die Gläser tragen lassen), das Essen schmeckt hervorragend und die Preise sind
völlig angemessen.
Das Thema Klimaanlage ist auch schon einer der beiden Kritikpunkte, die aber beide sicher von jedem anders gesehen werden. Der Laden ist sehr runtergekühlt, auch wenn es draußen gar nicht so warm ist. Das zweite ist die Lautstärke. Es herrscht eine relativ hohe Grundlautstärke. Ein wirklich gemütliches Essen ist es daher nicht, was das vorwiegend junge Publikum aber nicht zu stören scheint.
Von mir gibts alles in allem 4 Sterne!

Authentisches Essen, freundlicher, hilfsbereiter Service und dafür das das Lokal zentral in London ist, relativ günstig.
Aufpassen sollte man mit den Schärfegraden der Currys, die mit Pfefferschoten beschrieben sind. Es geht von 1 – 3 Pfefferschoten, wobei 1 Pfefferschote schon recht scharf ist und ich eigentlich einiges gewohnt bin. Unbedingt probieren: den Mango-​Joghurt-​Lassi, sehr lecker und löscht ein wenig den Brand vom Essen.

Rien à redire sur ce resto indien du quartier de Soho.
L’accueil est excellent. Les serveuses né sont pas avares d’explications sur le menu. La nourriture est la vraie nourriture indienne. (celle qui est mangé là-​bas, je le sais, j’ai été au Sri Lanka). Attention, donc, c’est quand même plus épicé qu’un resto indien quelconque de Paris par exemple.
On peut manger pour pas très cher surtout si on prend la formule thali. Pour ceux qui né connaissent pas, le thali est une assiette variée comprenant plusieurs petits plats indiens, une viande principale, du pain et quelques sauces. C’est généralement très copieux et suffit largement.
Seul point négatif: le cadre qui fait un peu cantine.

Kitch
L’accueil est chaleureux. C’est très copieux etselon les plats un peu suffire. La déco est d’un kitch absolu mais super sympa (poupées supendues au plafond). Je connaissais un peu la nourriture indienne aussi j’ai voulu tester la soupe et je dois dire que j’ai eu du mal à la teminer. Je suis tombée par hasard sur le resto et je né regrette pas un seul instant d’y être entrée. A essayer si l’on a très froid et très faim.

Pas tout compris
Je m’attendais à un restaurant indien, les serveurs sont indiens, le non indien, la déco a des traits indiens mais on y trouve de la cuisine américaine en général avec deux ou trois plats indiens excessifs à 10 livres. Cher et ferme tôt à 23h.