Chutney Mary is a fine diningIndian restaurant in London, founded in 1990 by Ranjit Mathrani & Namita Panjabi through their restaurant company whose current name is MW Eat. It has received considerable critical acclaim over the years. It was originally in Kings RoadChelsea, but relocated to St James's, London in 2015. Chutney Mary pioneered in redefining the public face of Indian cuisines by showcasing the gourmet foods from 6-7 different regions of India at any one time. It had the rigorous philosophy that the foods of the different regions could best be cooked by the chefs from that region. It was an extremely ambitious undertaking and akin to having a pan European gourmet. Chutney Mary was probably the first Indian restaurant in the world to trace the regional provenance of each dish. Chutney Mary was also pioneered as an Indian restaurant in taking wines seriously, and led the way in the pairing of Indian food and wine. The regional provenance and the dishes on the Chutney Mary proved the trailblazer for the supermarket packaged foods – e.g. Waitrose which from the mid 1990s started prepared dishes with the regional provenance and with names from the Chutney Mary menu.
Awards & Reviews
The awards it has received in its old location included twice winning the award of Best Indian restaurant in the UK awarded by the Good Curry Guide, twice featured as Fay Maschler's top 20 London restaurants, and the ITV Carlton Award as London's Best Indian Restaurant. In its new location the late AA Gill gave it the maximum of 5 Stars in his Sunday Times review with the concluding words "…if there is a better pan-Indian restaurant in London than Chutney Mary, I haven't eaten in it" Chutney Mary received the Square Meal Lifestyle BMW Best New Restaurant Award. The citation said “…For a restaurant to reach the 25-year mark is unusual; for it to mark that anniversary by moving to a totally different part of the city is unheard of.” Time Out Magazine rated it as No 5 of Top 50 restaurants in London with the phrase “Indian cooking as good as it gets.” In the restaurant review, Roopa Gulati gave it the maximum 5 Star rating with the phrase “…Astonishing Quality & wonderful service”. The Evening Standard - London Design Hotspot stated “…The new home of Chutney Mary incorporates dazzling décor that is fitting for this sumptuous environment” The Tatler liked its duck jardaloo and Goan chicken curry. Grace Dent in the Evening Standard called the dining room "irrefutably stunning", the restaurant "capacious, candle-bedazzled, art-strewn and Bentley-visited", and inevitably expensive. She found the venison samosas "unforgettable", and the carrot and cardamon soufflé with pistachio ice cream "the stuff of dreams". Ben McCormack in The Daily Telegraph calls the new restaurant "swanky". He explains that it was the first restaurant in Britain to cover all seven of the major cuisines of India: Lucknow, Punjab, Gujarat, Parsi, Goa, Kerala, and Hyderabad. He calls the food enjoyable and eye-opening.
