London is hardly short of Indian restaurants, but finding somewhere that takes the food seriously, offers something beyond the familiar high-street favourites and still feels like a good place to spend an evening is another matter. Chatora City is making a convincing case for itself.
Tucked away on Great St Thomas Apostle, a short walk from Mansion House, this modern Indian restaurant brings together traditional cooking techniques, regional dishes and a wine list that gives you another reason to linger over dinner. It is a more polished affair than your average curry house, but the ambition here is not simply about smart interiors and elaborate plating. The real draw is the food, from charcoal-grilled meat and carefully prepared curries to the slow-cooked black dal that is a fan favourite.
The Restaurant
Chatora City strikes a balance between a smart City restaurant and somewhere you can settle in for a relaxed dinner. Dark flooring, deep blue leather seating and gold accents give the dining room a contemporary feel without making the experience overly formal. The tables are also spaced comfortably apart, something diners have specifically appreciated in a part of London where restaurants can feel rather cramped.
As with most places in the city the atmosphere changes depending on when you visit. Lunch brings the City crowd, while evenings offer an opportunity to take your time over a few courses and a bottle of wine.The restaurant’s location beneath the railway tracks means passing trains can occasionally which provides a sort of background track as if you are in a film adding to the atmosphere of a hidden gem down a back street of London.
Where Chatora City excels is hospitality. Attentive staff, helpful recommendations and a warm welcome from owner Jamshed (Jam) Rahman. It is the kind of personal service that can turn a good meal into an evening worth repeating.
The Food
The menu is built around sharing starters, tandoor-cooked dishes, regional curries, rice and freshly prepared breads. There are familiar options, but the more interesting choices come from the kitchen’s willingness to explore different textures, cooking methods and regional flavours.
Indian street food is a natural place to begin, and Chatora City gives it a prominent role on the menu. The Chatora Chaat combines spiced chickpeas, crisp wheat, potato, sweetened yoghurt and Bikaneri sev, bringing together the contrasting textures and sweet, tangy and savoury flavours that make chaat so appealing.
Dahi Puri is another option, pairing crisp semolina shells with pomegranate-sweetened yoghurt and tamarind. It is the sort of starter that works particularly well when shared, offering a lighter, brighter opening before the richer dishes arrive. The gunpowder squid is another dish worth considering. It is a good option if you prefer something savoury and crisp before moving on to the main event.
Butter chicken is one of those dishes that tells you a lot about an Indian restaurant. It is familiar enough that most diners know what they want from it, but getting the balance of spice, richness and texture right is not always straightforward.
At Chatora City, the smoked charcoal butter chicken is one of the menu’s standout choices. The chicken is grilled before being coated in a creamy, buttery sauce and finished with cashew crumbs. the tenderness of the meat and the generous portion, there is enough depth to make this more than a sauce-heavy curry, with the smoky flavour of the cooking adding another dimension. It is an obvious recommendation for first-time visitors, particularly if you’re dining with someone who prefers a familiar order.
That said, the menu is not built entirely around safe choices. The chicken Chettinad has bold, fiery flavour and the way the individual ingredients came through. If you prefer your curry with more heat and a savoury, spice-led character, this looks like a particularly good alternative.
Sometimes the best dish at a restaurant is not the one you expected to remember. At Chatora City, that honour may belong to the black dal. The slow-cooked lentils are enriched with butter and burnt garlic, creating a deeply savoury dish that is designed for scooping up with bread. It is a useful reminder that a good Indian meal is about more than the headline curry. The supporting dishes matter, and a well-made dal can be just as satisfying as a plate of tandoor-grilled meat.
The restaurant’s breads deserve attention, too. Garlic naan is a natural partner for the butter chicken and dal, while the menu also includes more indulgent options such as truffle ghee kulcha, made with black truffle, clarified butter and Gruyère.
The wider menu gives diners plenty of reasons to return. Tandoor-grilled lamb chops bring smoky, charred flavours to the table, while the restaurant also offers blackened chicken wings seasoned with kala chaat masala, mango and ginger.
Seafood is another area worth exploring. The menu features Alleppey halibut with coconut malai, fresh turmeric and green mango, as well as Malabar prawn dishes built around aromatic coconut flavours. These are appealing options if you want something lighter than a rich butter-based curry.
The Drink
One of Chatora City’s more unusual selling points is its wine programme. The restaurant advertises a list of more than 120 wines, an impressive selection for a venue where the food is rooted in Indian cooking.
Wine and curry might not be the first pairing that comes to mind, but there is plenty of potential here. A fresh, mineral white can cut through creamy sauces, while a lighter red can work well with smoky grilled meat and dishes rich in warming spices. The restaurant also serves cocktails, including a Rose and Cucumber Collins and the fruit-forward Mango Maharani, made with tequila, Cointreau, mango, coconut and lime.
The useful thing is that drinks are treated as part of the experience rather than an afterthought. Staff recommendations are the key if you are not convinced on the wine and curry combo, but the broad list gives diners room to explore beyond the standard beer or mango lassi.
The TONE Take
Chatora City sits towards the more polished end of the Indian restaurant market, and prices reflect that. Individual dishes are not all budget-friendly: the butter chicken is listed at £23, while the kadhai paneer costs £19. The full à la carte experience can therefore add up, particularly if you order several starters, sides and drinks.
Chatora City makes a strong case for looking beyond London’s familiar curry-house favourites. Its best dishes combine traditional Indian flavours with the depth that comes from charcoal cooking, slow preparation and careful seasoning. The butter chicken is a reliable starting point, the black dal sounds like a dish worth ordering even when you think you’ve had enough sides, and the range of tandoor dishes and regional curries gives the menu enough variety to bring you back.
It is not an entirely flawless proposition. The pricing requires a little consideration, the room can become noisy, however you cant go wrong if you are looking to explore a new Indian restaurant which has traditional flavours.
Chatora City, 4 Great St Thomas Apostle, London EC4V 2BH. A short walk from Mansion House station. Weekday lunch menus start at £19.95 for two courses. Check the restaurant’s website for current opening hours and menus before visiting.
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