While we were in the UK last time, people kept telling me that I had to try the Indian food in London. So we decided to visit Gymkhana, in the heart of Mayfair, London.
I’ve been to London several times and I know that high-street curry houses in the United Kingdom are generally good. But Gymkhana is not just a regular curry house, it’s a landmark restaurant that holds two Michelin stars.
Gymkhana received its first Michelin star in 2014 and in the same year, it became the first Indian restaurant to win Restaurant of the Year at the UK’s National Restaurant Awards.
It’s probably one of the best Indian restaurants in a city that’s renowned for its Indian food, so I had high expectations.
Read on for my full review of the Gymkhana restaurant in London.
How to book a table at Gymkhana
The first thing you need to know about Gymkhana is that dinner reservations are really tough to get.
Tables are released at 6am GMT, two months in advance, and you might need to book even earlier than that if you want a private vault or you’re booking for larger groups. If you want to book a table for a Friday night, you’ll probably have to wait a month, and then you might only get a table after 10pm.
So, if you want to eat at Gymkhana, you need to get up early and be flexible about the date and time.
They don’t take bookings over the phone or email, but you can reserve a table online through the Gymkhana website. They use the Seven Rooms booking system, which lets you sign up for notifications so you know when tables become available.
In the run-up to our London trip, I received several email notifications that tables were available, but they went very quickly. If you don’t respond to the notification within the hour or even within minutes, the reservation will be snapped up by someone else.
Finally, we managed to get a reservation for a late lunchtime table.
The Restaurant
Walking down Albermarle Street in Mayfair, London, you might almost go straight past Gymkhana’s front door. The front of the restaurant is very low-key with an understated elegance.
Once inside, the ground-level dining room has decor inspired by colonial Indian high society with ceiling fans, marble tables, and rattan chairs. Low lighting, highly polished dark wood, and tones of jade create the relaxed ambiance of a gentlemen’s club, and items of Gymkhana memorabilia like hunting trophies and intricate engravings are dotted around the room.
This part of the restaurant is tiny, with only 8-10 booths tightly packed together. There’s a small seating area right inside the restaurant, and a small bar that looks like it’s traveled in time from the early 20th century.
However, if you take the mirrored staircase to the lower ground floor, you’ll be seated in a second dining room decorated in the warm peach and red tones of north Indian architecture.
The Menus
The decor is stunning, but we were there to try Gymkhana’s food. The restaurant has several menus, including an a la carte menu, a set lunch menu, and a private dining menu. There’s also a four-course tasting menu option with additional desserts and wine pairings.
The website said that the set lunch option is only available until 1.45pm, allowing the restaurant time to prepare for the dinner service. I assumed this meant we’d have to order off the a la carte menu, so I was very excited when they allowed us to order the set lunch option.
This gave us the chance to try many different dishes and get a real sense of the Indian cuisine at Gymkhana. Eating off the a la carte menu wouldn’t be a problem, but we would only have sampled a few dishes.
The Set Lunch Menu at Gymkhana
The set lunch menu at Gymkhana starts with a round of appetizers. The friendly staff brought out a selection of poppadoms with toppings like spiced prawns and cooling mint raita, a tray of different dips, and aloo chat, a popular Indian street food made from spiced cubes of fried potato.
Everything was super delicious, and the restaurant easily accommodated my husband’s gluten allergy. It was a great start that set the tone for the rest of our meal.
The next dish was a choice of starters from paneer tikka (spiced Indian cheese), salmon tikka, or a kasoori chicken tikka. We chose the paneer tikka and chicken tikka, which were both fantastic and really flavorful. I preferred the paneer, but my husband definitely liked the chicken better.
Next, it was time for the main course. We had a choice of dishes including kid goat methi keema, chana masala, Goan prawn curry, which I had, and butter chicken masala, which was my husband’s choice. They were served with chana dal, a spinach dish, basmati rice, or fluffy garlic naan, and my husband added mint chutney to his plate.
We both liked the chicken butter masala more than the other options, but everything we tried was absolutely amazing. The chicken was melt-in-the-mouth tender, and both the chicken and prawn curries had so many layers of flavors that worked perfectly together.
The options for dessert were saffron pistachio kulfi falooda (a frozen dessert made from finely ground pistachios and a touch of saffron) or a creamy Indian rice pudding with figs and cardamom. But after our main courses, we were so full that we didn’t have room for dessert!
If you visit Gymkhana for dinner, the £120 tasting menu and early evening menu include most of these dishes with the addition of options like tandoori lamb chops with walnut chutney or wild muntjac biryani.
The Drinks List
Gymkhana has an extensive wine list, with a small selection available by the glass, a range of beers, premium spirits, and India-inspired signature cocktails.
They also have a gin selection map to help you choose a gin from their selection depending on whether you like juniper-forward gins, floral gins, and so on. It’s clear that they’ve put a lot of thought into it, and it would be a very cool experience if you’re a gin lover.
We didn’t have any alcoholic drinks with our lunch, but even the soft drinks were more interesting than at many restaurants. Options included a mango and ginger soda and an Indian lemonade with pomegranate and black salt.
Is a Meal at Gymkhana, London, worth it?
The food at Gymkhana is a truly delicious treat for your taste buds. Everything tasted amazing, and the portion sizes were pretty generous. We were staying in a hotel, so we couldn’t reheat leftovers, but we saw other people leaving with takeaway containers.
The staff were on top of the food allergies issue and were happy to cater for my husband’s gluten allergy. I had to flag someone down for a drink once, but generally, the service was exceptionally good.
My only slight problem, and it wasn’t really a complaint, was that the tables were squeezed in very close together. The couple on the next table were sitting very close to us, and it felt a bit like they were packing the customers in.
This four-course lunch menu costs £60 per head with an additional £5 charge if you have dessert. The non-alcoholic drinks were a little expensive at £8 each, but our total bill was around £200.
That’s pretty reasonable for a two-star Michelin restaurant, and it would have been even better value if we’d taken our leftover food to eat later. But overall, the restaurant was excellent value for such good food, and it’s possible to get in as long as you’re patient and a little flexible on timings.
I highly recommend Gymkhana if you’re celebrating a special occasion or craving good Indian food in London. Wonder what to do afterwards? Check out 15 of the best private tours in London!
