Updated 28/2/18 with images and booking details
What: Dip in Brilliant
In a nutshell: Casual Punjabi cafe
Summing it all up: The chef behind Southall's famous Brilliant restaurant is expanding the family empire. First she's opening this laid back Punjabi cafe where you'll eat from Thalis and can be in and out within 30 minutes if you wish.
The low-down
If there's one obvious growth area in the London restaurant scene over the past few months, it has to be Indian restaurants. Don't get us wrong - London's long been a great place to get good Indian food, but there's been a complete explosion in the variety we now have to choose from. Don't believe us? Just take a gander at the amount of stories we're written with the Indian tag over the past year.
All of which leads in to the latest opening coming our way. Dip in Brilliant is the second restaurant from the family behind the well regarded Brilliant in Southall. That was opened by Gulu Anand way back in 1975 and since then it's earned a serious reputation as well as an A-list clientele - everyone from Prince Charles to Tina Turner has been here. Late last year their chef (and Gulu's daughter) Dipna Anand announced she'd be popping up in the new Tottenham stadium. But before that opens, she's found time to fit in a casual Punjabi cafe/restaurant in the heart of Fulham.
As Dipna described it to Hot Dinners, Dip in Brilliant is "a casual trendy Punjabi cafe style dining room where guests can dip in and enjoy enticing hearty Indian cuisine full of flavour yet balanced in level of spice.
Asked why she wanted to open in this location she said, "It was an opportunity I could not resist...bringing my Brilliant Punjabi offer to Central London could not have come at a better time. Customers at our family-run restaurant The Brilliant in Southall often ask us when we are opening in Central, well here we are and we cannot wait to serve you...My motive is to take my Brilliant Punjabi cuisine to wherever people demand it. We are a curry loving nation and its my duty to continue to fly the flag of Punjabi food as high as possible."
The idea is, if it succeeds, to roll it out. As the name suggests, the idea is you can either "dip in and out of within thirty minutes" or stay longer for a more leisurely meal if you prefer.
Diners will eat from a thali (a metal round platter) and - whether this flies on the Fulham Road we'll wait to see - Dipna wants to encourage diners to use their hands to eat out of the sharing platter. Expect dishes like: jeera chicken, tandoori chops and fish pakoras. It'll open on the Fulham Road in the spot where Kishmish used to be.
More about Dip in Brilliant
Where is it? 448-450 Fulham Road, London SW6 1DL
When does it open? Now open
How to book: Book online or call 020 3771 9443
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Facebook
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