Grand Trunk Road, Woodford, Essex: Indian Fine Dining
Eating out during Covid-19 can be a less than lovely experience. Temperature is taken on arrival, staff in masks, perspex screens dividing tables set with trusty bottles of hand sanitiser. You get the picture.
However, Grand Trunk Road in suburban South Woodford managed to make it all seem a bit less grim, just part of the norm even. Softly spoken staff in masks counterbalanced the effects of Covid-19, helped by the plush interior of this fine dining Indian restaurant. Glamorous with a traditional touch, bespoke, handmade lattice screens inspired by the Taj Mahal line walls above sage green banquettes and exposed brickwork.
When I ask owner and manager Rajesh Suri, dapper and charming in a velvet jacket, why he chose to open his own restaurant in Essex, the answer was simple. ‘It’s minutes from my home.’ What isn’t so handy is the inspiration for the menu and the name of the restaurant. Named after the 16th-century trade route that cuts across South Asia, from Bangladesh to Afghanistan, chef Dayashankar Sharma and co-owner Suri spent six weeks in India, seeking regional inspiration for many of the dishes on the menu, including Amritsar, Delhi, Agra, Banaras, Kolkata, Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. The new venture, which opened in 2017, was clearly never going to fail with two such experienced and devoted food lovers. Suri established the Tamarind restaurant group, in particular their Michelin-starred Mayfair Indian restaurant where the very amiable Sharma was head chef.
My partner and I began with a cocktail, not something I associate with Indian cuisine, but there’s a resident mixologist to whisk up the heady mix, many of them twists on existing cocktails. My preference was for the Punjabi Mojito, £10.75, with rum, ginger beer, fresh mint and lime but the Afghani Silk, £9.75, sounded the most enticing (vodka, Cointreau, lychee juice and lime).
Faced with a lot of menu choice, I tend to drift into indecision, so we let the chef choose for us. They got us off to a good start with a plate of three very lovely things. In the middle, a big juicy seared scallop with roasted pepper, tomato and garlic chutney was flanked on one side by a tiny morsel of chicken with spinach, onion and on the other by a cheese and potato cake with sultana, ginger, mint and tamarind.
After a suitable break, a lot of dishes arrived on the table from lamb gosht dum biryani, £19.95, with aromatic spices and a side dish of classic, cooling raita. This is one of the dishes they experienced during their food odyssey in Hyderabad. The 'dum' is the pastry lid mirroring the clay pot the dish was originally made of. When I crack open the pastry the air is warm and sweet with the smell of spiced lamb, saffron and rice.
But who needs meat with dishes like Dal Bukhara, £7.50? A dreamy blend of black lentils cooked slowly overnight, tomato and fenugreek, enriched with cream. When I cook okra it's almost always slimy, but Chunar Ki Bhindi, £10.95, introduced us to almost al dente baby okra cooked with beetroot, pickling spices and pretty pink pickled onion. For someone who flirts with vegetarianism, Indian food definitely makes it much easier to eschew meat.
Grand Trunk Road might be a little easier to reach than the ancient trade route – just along the A12 or hop on the Central Line - but this is a restaurant that I’d travel far to eat in at any time.
*Grand Trunk Road, South Woodford