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.

Contact details

Welcome to Dum Edinburgh

Menu

Welcome to Dum Edinburgh

Contact details

 Menu

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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

BOMBAY, MARCH 1923. Botanist, ecologist, and all-round man of the people Patrick Geddes reclines on a long-armed rattan chair. An unruly mop of hair sits atop his wide forehead, which is etched with many lines. We find him in the J.N. Petit reading room, in that second of clean consciousness that comes with waking. The muffled din of the street and the gentle whir of ceiling fans fill the quiet room.He observes the marble-topped tables lined with many varied visitors: students, curious readers, elderly men poring over periodicals in English, Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati, while a handful of others are quietly nodding off. Everyday people all sitting, working and sleeping, cheek by jowl.

And amongst them sits Geddes, a big-hearted Scot of excitable character. Bombay has been his home since 1917 when he travelled to India at the behest of Lord Pentland, Governor of Madras. A pioneer of town planning (successful and prolific in equal measure), he brought plenteous wisdom to India from his years reforming Edinburgh’s Old Town.His early days in Bombay were spent humbly, wandering the streets. “By living we learn”, he would say to his students from the University of Bombay. And so he would walk, observe, ask, listen – a cheerful nomadic flâneur buoyed by curiosity.

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Continued…

All who met him were enthused by the energy of this prodigious man. And yet, since the double loss of his wife and son in 1917 (his dearest Anna passed away never knowing that her boy was gone, killed on the Western Front), that energy is somewhat depleted, a flame flickering a little from sorrow. He finds quiet repose in the dusty tranquillity of his beloved reading rooms, and – though his ideas and enthusiasms were not just of his youth – he often comes here to sit awhile, an old love letter from his wife in hand.

Geddes rubs his face and climbs out of the chair – involuntarily grunting as he rises. Stiffly, he walks across the parquet floor and through the threshold into the hubbub of the city. Looking about, he admires the special character of Bombay, this crowded, many-cultured, generally implausible city: hawkers peddling their wares, men cleaning ears, briefcases swinging, cows roaming. The sights and sounds are far removed from his old dwellings in Edinburgh, but the pungent smell takes him back to 1886 when he and Anna first moved to the crumbling Old Town, with its absence of effective plumbing.

Narrowly, he dodges the flick of a street sweeper’s broom. On another day, he may well have paused and enquired as to the fellow’s health; but not today, for he has an appointment to keep.

He is meeting his friend Khambatta in a favourite place: Kyani & Co., a so-called ‘Irani’ café opened by some of the Zoroastrian immigrants who had been arriving in Bombay since the turn of the century. On fieldwork trips with his students, Geddes would sit for hours in these establishments, discussing what they saw there: families, students, professionals, elderly men – all sitting side by side – sharing the experience of daily living. He notes that these cafés truly seemed to bring people together, regardless of caste, faith or social standing.

On seeing his friend – a jovial Parsi with a remarkable talent for theatre – Geddes reflects for a moment. How welcome and refreshing a space like this would be in Edinburgh… A place which could break down the boundaries between classes and provide common ground, a truly shared space. His musings did not go unnoticed by his friend Khambatta, who spotted the familiar twinkle in Geddes’ eye – a plan was afoot, and he leant in to listen.

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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 Edinburgh

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?

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Menus

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

See the menus

Sir Patrick Geddes

Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was a Scottish botanist, sociologist, town planner, and all-round man of the people. His work improving living conditions in Edinburgh’s Old Town led him to Bombay in 1915, where he founded the department of Sociology & Civics at Bombay University. This restaurant, its design and the art on the walls are an homage to Geddes and his time in Bombay. With thanks to the National Library of Scotland and the Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust for their kind help.

 

 

 

PICTURED: The big-hearted Scot, Sir Patrick Geddes
 

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 Edinburgh 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
 
Sunday
9am to 11pm
 
 
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