Desi Pubs, Reinvented

It’s a grey, rainy day in London, perfect weather for the warmth of an old pub. This particular establishment occupies a 1920s building near the iconic Borough Market with requisite dark wood paneling and stained glass windows. But it also features Bollywood posters and menus with chicken tikka masala, spiced pies with minced goat, and weekend masala roasts — drawing both office crowds and locals who treat it as “an extension of their living rooms,” said Megha Khanna, one half of the brother-sister duo who run The Gladstone. Khanna, who grew up in a Punjabi family via Zambia, gave up a role as a product manager to help her brother chase his dreams of being a pub landlord.

The Glad, as locals call it, is a Desi pub, a unique chapter in Britain’s long and complex relationship with South Asian cuisine. In a country where those from the Indian subcontinent were once openly unwelcome, pubs with South Asian landlords became a reclamation of sorts. But London is now one of the epicenters of subcontinental cuisine globally: you can grab lamb chops from Tayyab’s, eggs akuri from Dishoom, or dosas from Hoppers with ease. So who are Desi pubs for today?