The first London branch of Dishoom’s all-day Bombay-inspired cafe sideline can be found in the jazzed-up bones of a grand Victorian boozer on one of the city’s most famous streets. Permit Room Portobello comes on the back of branches in Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge, and is, essentially, Dishoom with a side hustle as a Notting Hill creative director. It’s still fairly pub-like in demeanor; there’s a big long bar and cosy booths, but design-wise it’s had the full Dishoom treatment; glossy wood panelling, a smattering of South Asian art, embroidery pieces, parquet flooring and potted palms. There’s a slightly formal first-floor dining room – good for dimly lit dinners as well as chai-fuelled weekday co-working – but if you’re popping in to hoover up an 8am bacon naan, then the more casual ground floor is where you’ll want to be.
When it comes to food, the menu is shorter than your standard Dishoom offering, but with dishes exclusive to the Permit Room, such as chilli-cheese naan bites, and fish chapali patties, as well as cinnamon-spiked French toast for brekkie. But what really makes the Permit Room special is the fact that it’s home to a stunningly designed two-room apartment upstairs - yes, a Dishoom hotel. It’s £700 a night, but could comfortably sleep four, with bouncy beds, a large living area and a view up Portobello Road that seems straight out of a Richard Curtis movie. It feels less like a hotel and more like your stylish auntie’s west London bolthole, complete with fridge stocked with Mango lassi and a mini bar full of Dishoom’s prebottled cocktails.