The best curry house in London
10 places
City Spice
££The Brick Lane curry house that gets named most often when people argue about which of them is still worth eating at.
Hyderabadi Spice
££Hyderabadi biryani done as its own tradition rather than as a side dish on a north Indian menu.
Lahori Nihaari
£Built around nihari, the slow-cooked breakfast stew - a single-dish kitchen in a city with very few of them.
Namaaste Highgate
££Named Asian Restaurant of the Year for London at the 2025 Asian Curry Awards - a neighbourhood restaurant that beat the Mayfair field.
Original Lahore Kebab House
££Trading since 1972 on lamb chops, dry lamb curry and chicken karahi, in a room that has never pretended to be anything but a canteen.
BYOB. Open late, which is half the reason it is busy.
Punjab
££Open since 1946 and claimed as the oldest North Indian restaurant in Britain, still run by the same family.
Sheba
££A long-standing Brick Lane room, picked out on a TOPJAW run through the street.
Spice Village
££A large, bright Tooting room built for families and big tables rather than for atmosphere.
Tayyabs
££The sizzling lamb chops arrive still spitting and are the reason the queue forms - a Whitechapel institution since the 1970s that has never needed to change.
BYOB, no bookings for small groups at peak, and loud. The queue is the system.
The Bombay Restaurant
££Named by three independent sources including Currylife, which covers the curry-house trade rather than the restaurant press.