An eccentric old Bombay Café, recently arrived, East London

Posted August 16th, 2012. comments

Britannia Cafe, Ballard Estate, Bombay

NGS just love this look – stay posted

Dishoom Shoreditch, 7, Boundary Street, London E2 7JE. Opening October 2012.

One day, an old Irani Café (born circa 1930, Bombay), creaking slightly at the seams, made the long trip from Bombay in 1970 to London in 2012. Tired from the long journey, it shuffled into an empty space in Shoreditch and made itself comfortable. This old Café had for some time been maintaining correspondence with its slightly more showy cousin who had made a similar trip and had found a home in Covent Garden.

However, while the cousin in Covent Garden had worked hard to polish, primp and style itself, this Café was less concerned. It knew instinctively that the layers of imperfection and eccentricity built up over the many years of serving customers in…