Restaurants

Striding purposefully into its second year, Atma (‘soul’) has an assuredness born of skill and training. The smart waiters are models of quiet efficiency, and the kitchen staff (with experience at Zaika among others) know their Modern Indian onions. Amuses bouches, perhaps an exquisite espresso cup of dhal soup, emphasise the culinary ambitions. A seafood platter starter maintained the standard: dense salmon fish cakes, tender tubes of squid in the lightest batter, and, best of all, ajwain-garlic tandoori king prawn, the blackened but juicy crustacean on a pungent garlicky relish. The menu embraces Kashmiri and South Indian food, so as well as tandooris you’ll find chettinad chicken, zinging with coconut and spiced (a little meekly) with warming black pepper, and lemon rice boosted with mustard seeds and curry leaves. Neither should you miss the mixed bread basket, featuring the best of north and south. Two caveats: ‘smoked chicken’ was too much like tikka masala despite its highfalutin description; and blinds to banish the worst outrages of the Finchley Road would greatly improve this otherwise serene, terracotta-hued restaurant. In all, though, Atma deserves to succeed.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009