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Bringing people of all walks of life together to celebrate culture and food.
Breaking down barriers: a meal for a meal and knots of protection.
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Beaming through a tucked away corner of Brighton’s busy lanes, Permit Room is open and ready to welcome one and all. Not to be confused with the buzzy bars in our Dum cafés, this Permit Room is an outpost all of its own. Read on.
The holy month of Ramadan is upon us, when Muslims around the world fast daily from dawn till dusk. It is a time of private worship and spiritual discipline, but also of shared joy and abundant feasting. Families and communities come together at suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, and at iftar, the
evening meal, to break their fasts with copious, delicious dishes.
We will be hosting our own Iftar celebration on April 7th, at Camley Street Natural Park near Dum King’s Cross.
We’re turning page after page of Ayesha Erkin’s recipe book Date of the Day, featuring 30+ recipes for the modest date – timely for breaking fast and after. Our dear friend Ayesha has now kindly shared a recipe for you to make at home. Try it this Iftar or any time you need a salty-spiced sticky treat.
We often find it too easy to hurtle through the days, in an attempt to outpace the bustling city – be it London or Bombay – which always seems to be running away like a steam-engine train on a rickety track. Occasionally, it does us good to pause for thought, to disembark the carriage and sit on the platform awhile.
The month of Ramadan may be a period of fasting but it’s equally synonymous with feasting. Iftar – the evening meal with which Muslims break their fast – is an occasion for eating favourite dishes and indulging in the naughtiness of moreish snacks after a day of abstaining, and these cheese-and-pastry twirls make the perfect snack.
When we create a Dum, we always imagine it as an Irani café deeply rooted in an aspect of Bombay history. We then sit down and write a story – a different founding myth – which guides every single detail of that space.
Read the founding myths
Beaming through a tucked away corner of Brighton’s busy lanes, Permit Room is open and ready to welcome one and all. Not to be confused with the buzzy bars in our Dum cafés, this Permit Room is an outpost all of its own.
In September 2013, at Dishoom Shoreditch, we’re hosting a ‘cabinet of curiosity’ curated by This is Provenance as part of the London Design Festival.
The Permit Room
Our Old-Fashioned bottled cocktail takes its name from the Permit Room bar, found in every Dishoom and so named after the official term for all Bombay drinking establishments, in which, according to the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949, only permit-holders may consume alcohol. Herein, liquor can be sold and imbibed, but only for the goodness of one’s health.
Our wonderful friends at Dialogues of Diaspora have done something awesome. Get ready to sit-down and listen-in to eye-opening conversations in their brand-new three-part series which sheds a unique light on the South Asian Diaspora. They unpack interesting views on identity, history, music, fashion – share untold stories and ask thought-provoking questions. We’re so excited to share the first episode with you.
The narrative of the disappearing Irani Cafés has a certain wistful poetry.
Zoroastrian Iranian immigrants cross the Indian ocean from Iran to arrive in early 20th century colonial Bombay. They work in the homes of established Parsi families, leaving to set up their own cafés. These Irani cafés become an irreplaceable Bombay institution. An institution which earns a fond place in the hearts of Bombayites, regardless of caste and class, by
The narrative of the disappearing Irani Cafés has a certain wistful poetry.
Zoroastrian Iranian immigrants cross the Indian ocean from Iran to arrive in early 20th century colonial Bombay. They work in the homes of established Parsi families, leaving to set up their own cafés. These Irani cafés become an irreplaceable Bombay institution. An institution which earns a fond place in the hearts of Bombayites, regardless of caste and class, by
In September 2013, at Dishoom Shoreditch, we’re hosting a ‘cabinet of curiosity’ curated by This is Provenance as part of the London Design Festival.
NOT SO LONG AGO we were wondering to ourselves: “What might have happened if a young Irani had set up a café in a Godown (warehouse) behind Bombay’s Victoria Terminus, C. 1928?
Stop by any Bombay tapri (street stall), café, or home, and you will likely find yourself with a gently steaming glass of chai in hand.
Bedecked in their annual finery of baubles, tinsel and lights, our cafés are ready to receive you for your Christmas celebration. So too are our chefs, who have assembled a most excellent array of festive fare for your table. Our indulgent Christmas Feasting menu is designed for gatherings of six or more, promising lavishly laden thaals of café favourites – and as many side dishes as you wish – to leave your group very merry and thoroughly sated. For smaller groups, we proffer our à la carte Christmas menu, featuring seasonally-inspired specials alongside first-class Dishoom classics.
For Chef Rishi Anand Khatri, our newest café special is in fact an old family favourite. His earliest memory of eating Bhatti Chicken is aged 7 or 8, and he recalls his father – the late Khatri Saab – cooking it regularly, thanks to the tandoor on their Delhi terrace. (Bhatti refers to the scorching flame that the chicken is roasted over, until succulent).
Thursday 12th April – 1973, BOMBAY
It is almost light outside. It must be about six. He’s been awake half the night trying to figure out what to do. Lying on his bed, he stares through the rotating blades of the ceiling fan which only serve to stir the close warm air of his room. He needs to think – he’s running out of time. But his eyes feel salted and his head throbs.
Be sure to have read our first installment here before delving into this second chapter.
Do read the first and second installments of Dishoom Canary Wharf’s founding myth before our finale.
WITH EACH NEW CAFÉ that we open, we write a story deeply rooted in Bombay history or culture. In Carnaby, the setting is Bombay’s rock scene, which flared up briefly in the 60s and 70s. In King’s Cross, the setting is a notional godown near Victoria Terminus, the struggle for Indian Independence the historical backdrop. Our story informs all aspects of the restaurant’s design. We spend months researching the Bombay of the period and combing the city for the right furniture, both vintage and new. In a way, you walk across our thresholds into our stories.
The festival of Eid al-Fitr (literally “the Celebration of the Breaking of the Fast”) marks the conclusion of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month where restraint and discipline must be practised. The rituals of Ramadan are a spiritual and a physical cleansing; the act of fasting cultivates the qualities of gratitude, generosity and empathy.
The festival of light brings people together in celebration, regardless of wealth or status, of race, background or beliefs with its symbolism of new joy, new beginnings and hope.
Christmas Revellers rejoice! For we have a whole host of festive fun lined up that is taking place up and down the country. Kindly read on to learn what jovial affairs are going on in your city for the all-important business of diary marking:
This year, on Wednesday 8th November, you are warmly invited to join us at The Steel Yard from 7pm until midnight for a night of dancing and deliciousness. Our friend, the creative marvel Almass Badat, has curated a most diverting array of South-Asian performers to help you dance the night away under the lights of the main auditorium.
The Permit Room – hidden beneath the kitchen of Dishoom Edinburgh – pays homage to best Bombay tradition of Parsi theatre. Our research and explorations into this theatrical world of slapstick comedy and dry wit was helped greatly by our new friend Meher Marfatia – author of the delightfully titled book ‘Laughter in the House’ which chronicles 20th century Parsi theatre. We give her huge thanks for all her help. Not only has she supported us with the curation of Permit Room artefacts and bar menu, but she has also been kind enough to write a blog for us.
In September 2017, we met top musician, composer and all-round cool cat, Dom James. Countless late-night jazz sessions later, Dom went on to curate the rather excellent music for our one-off, immersive theatre production – ‘Night at the Bombay Roxy‘. We loved him and his band so much, they now play three sets every Thursday and Friday night in Dum Kensington from 7:15pm.
Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.
Each year, the spring equinox – when day and night are equal length – marks a transition in earth’s relationship with the sun. This event, sacred to many cultures throughout history, today thrives as a new year celebration for hundreds of millions.
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