August 31st, 2025

Your Majesty's Menu

And More

Now delivering to:

London

Now delivering across London.
From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Kent

Serving Kent’s finest tables.
Crafted slow, delivered hot.

Surrey

Decadence, delivered. Surrey’s pre-orders are now live. From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Welcome to Dum Carnaby

Contact details

 Menu

Contact details

Welcome to Dum Carnaby

Menu

NOVEMBER. 1967. Heathrow airport. A young man leans against the Oceanic terminal’s high windows, waiting for the final call for BOAC flight 774 to Bombay. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and stares into the heavy rain driving down onto the tarmac.

<p>The passing travellers are openly curious to see a tall, striking Indian (actually, an Irani – not that they’d understand the distinction) dressed in stylish clothes. The women’s eyes linger on him. They look away. Look again. Smile a little when he catches them. Today he doesn’t smile back. In his breast pocket sits a folded telegram. He can feel it there like a weight, a palm-print of heavy sadness on his chest. It arrived three days earlier with the news that would send him into a tail-spin of grief, guilt and confusion. “Your father has passed. Come home. We need you.”

~
Reservations

Dishoom is mostly a walk-in café. All are welcome, any time, no reservations needed. However, if you’d like to make a reservation, we hold a handful of tables back for groups of all sizes every day until 5.45pm. After 6pm, a small number of tables are available to be reserved by parties of six or more, at specific times.

Make a reservation

It has been several years since he first came to London from Bombay. Since his family waved him off, their pride and joy, gone to study in England. Only for him to be seduced by the city, first making excuses to extend his stay and then breaking the news that he could not, would not, return. His mother had begged him to come back. Most painful of all, his father had stopped communicating with him.

But how could he have walked away from this whirlwind of excitement? The music that gave him the chills… The parties, the clubs, the cocktails, the beautiful uninhibited girls, even (occasionally) the drugs… He had found himself drawn into a world where anything was possible. Heady discussions into the early hours about changing the world, music and revolution, dancing in Ad-Lib next to David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton, tripping at sunrise on Primrose Hill…

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Continued…

His father had been bread-winner, protector, head of the household – and of course, Irani café owner. It was a role his father – and his grandfather before him – had taken very seriously. Their dedication and loyal service to guests had seen the family business grow from a scruffy street-corner café to a smart new premises in Churchgate.

Final call. He sighs heavily and picks up the small leather case carrying his favourite threads from Mates Boutique and Lord John. He travelled light; most of the things he loved had been left behind… his guitars, the trunks full of LPs, the artworks he has carefully collected. He is suddenly conscious how absurdly foreign his English possessions would look at home. He remembers India as backwards, dull and insular, painfully restrictive. He allows himself to imagine that perhaps things may not be as they were. He has heard about some of the ‘beat’ music bands from some Bombay musicians who came overland to London in a VW camper. His sister had mentioned in a letter that his old friend Ramzan had started a club, where these bands played covers of Western hits.

He turns and walks slowly towards the gate. The air stewardess smiles at him and checks his boarding pass. This time he smiles back, but he can’t hide the deep sadness in his eyes. He steps out into the rain and onto the dark wet tarmac to board the plane home.

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Go back

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Reservations

Dishoom is mostly a walk-in café. All are welcome, any time, no reservations needed. However, if you’d like to make a reservation, we hold a handful of tables back for groups of all sizes every day until 5.45pm. After 6pm, a small number of tables are available to be reserved by parties of six or more, at specific times.

Make a reservation

Food & Drink at Dum Carnaby

BEGIN YOUR DAY AT DUM with breakfast, which might be a Bacon Naan Roll, a Kejriwal or a Big Bombay. Then lunch lightly on Roomali Rolls and Salad Plates, or linger with a feast. Refresh your afternoon with a drop of Chai and a small plate or two. Dine early or dine late. Or just join us for a tipple – perhaps an India Gimlet, a Permit Room Old-fashioned, or our very good Dum IPA?

~
Menus

Bombay breakfast, lunch, afternoon chai, dinner and late tipples.

See the menus

Welcome to Dum Carnaby

IT’S 1968. IMAGINE YOURSELF lounging in a stylish Irani café-bar in Churchgate, Bombay.

Late night, low lights… Nearby, the young café owner is holding court with a group with friends. They are smoking Simla cigarettes and sharing an illicit bottle of Old Monk while discussing the recent victory of the Savages at the Sound Trophy Contest, and the record they are now due to cut with Asha Puthli. Their English is accented but their threads might not be out of place on Carnaby Street. The jukebox is playing a track by the Stones; for the most part, the singer hits the right notes. For a moment, you ask yourself – is this Bombay, or London, or somewhere in between?

Welcome to the Permit Room

Since 1949, and to this very day Bombay has been under a state of prohibition. Set apart from a family room, there is a special place where only permit holders may consume liquor which has come to be known unofficially as a Permit Room. Our Permit Room – the bar within our Kensington café serves the most delicious and sincere old cocktails, recalling the days before Independence, such as Gimlets, Juleps and Sours; Fizzes and Old-Fashioneds, and a Bombay Presidency Punch.

WELCOME TO THE PERMIT ROOM​

Since 1949, and to this very day Bombay has been under a state of prohibition. Set apart from a family room, there is a special place where only permit holders may consume liquor which has come to be known unofficially as a Permit Room. Our Permit Room – the bar within our Carnaby café serves the most delicious and sincere old cocktails, recalling the days before Independence, such as Gimlets, Juleps and Sours; Fizzes and Old-Fashioneds, and a Bombay Presidency Punch.

Contact Details

Dum Covent Garden
12 Upper St. Martin’s Lane
London
WC2H 9FB

 View on Google Maps

Tel: 020 7420 9320

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Opening Times

Monday – Thursday
8am to 11pm
 
 
 
 
Friday
8am to 12am
 
Saturday
9am to 12am
 
Saturday
9am to 12am
 

Please note:– no alcohol service before 12pm

 
 
Bank Holidays
Open as usual
 
 

Now delivering across London.
From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Serving Kent’s finest tables.
Crafted slow, delivered hot.

Decadence, delivered. Surrey’s pre-orders are now live. From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Privacy Policy  Shipping Policy
Facebook Twitter Youtube

Your Majesty's Menu

And More

Now delivering to:

London

Now delivering across London.
From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Kent

Serving Kent’s finest tables.
Crafted slow, delivered hot.

Surrey

Decadence, delivered. Surrey’s pre-orders are now live. From kitchen to castle, your biryani awaits.

Privacy Policy
Shipping Policy

Facebook Twitter Youtube