I tried Dishoom's first new menu in 14 years and there were surprises

Edinburgh’s branch of Dishoom is definitely a smooth operation.

I visit on a Tuesday night, and it’s hoaching with diners who are ordering their beloved black daal, chai, mango lassis or their ruby murray curries.

There is a queue forming outside.

It seems ever popular, but nothing can stay exactly the same forever. After 14 years of offering the same food list, they’ve updated their menu across the ten UK cafes.

“It was time,” says Caroline Mair, area manager of the seven-year-old Dishoom Edinburgh.

For those who have a regular order, this may be alarming. Apparently, a few dishes have been dropped, including the starter of prawn koliwada.

However, they’ve been cautious. The food list was designed in a process that took months and involved group research trips to Mumbai’s remaining Irani cafes - the swiftly disappearing venues that inspired the Thakrar cousins to create Dishoom in 2010.

They’ve now got 22 new dishes on the a la carte menu, including an update on the popular pau bhaji, and the chole puri halwa is now available at breakfast, too. They also recently added 19 new cocktails, including non-alcoholic ones.

This change comes at an exciting time for the restaurant, which is fresh from a New York all-day breakfast pop-up at Pastis that sold out within five minutes.

Maybe they’re considering a US branch. However, I’m keener to know if they’re opening another in Scotland - Glasgow, perhaps?

Mair won’t say, but it’s something they’ve been mulling over for a while. Until that happens, Dishoom will probably remain the most copied of chains.

“But that’s flattering,” says Mair, diplomatically.

On my visit, we’re feasting underneath a sepia-tinted portrait of Dishoom Edinburgh’s head chef, Anand Ghotikar. He tells us that the new menu features a bit more spice than the last. Thus, I keep a nervous eye out for the (S) key on the menu.

To begin, there’s a Snack of grid-like chota papad puffs, with side dips including mango and tamarind chutney.

Then we’re onto the Small Plates. Mair says that the new fish amritsari is her favourite of the new dishes. It consists of five russet cocoons of battered cod, with a minty and grasshopper green dip on the side. They suggest having it with a drink, and who am I to argue?

I especially love the small plate of updated keema pau, though I haven’t tried the original. It’s now being served on a metal tray, and they’ve slightly tweaked the recipe. Anyway, I look at it and think ‘meh, mince on toast’, but the lamb is rich and fragrant with lindi pepper and dill, and the slices of brioche are, to paraphrase Gregg Wallace, butterier than a biscuit base.

The up-dated makhmali paneer is difficult to resist, since it contains cheese, in the form of chunks of paneer - each the size and as bouncy as a mouse’s mattress - and cashew nuts.

I don’t equate salads with spice, but the benign-sounding ‘fancy house salad’ floats like a butterfly, with its leafy mix of wheat, pickled beetroot and nuts, and stings like a bee, thanks to a Goan coconut toddy vinegar dressing. I regard it with slight fear, since just one mouthful has made my nose leak.

We’re all bewitched by the Parsi classic of methi gosht - a fenugreek-scented lamb curry that has an ultra rich essence of a mahogany gravy, which is topped with salli crisp-chips. While, their new Goan monkfish curry has a balmy, tamarind tangy and coconutty sauce that I want to suck through a straw like it’s a milkshake, and a portion of blackened butterfly prawns come as a juicy quartet, with a wedge of lime on the side.

The food keeps coming. I pop my cherry when it comes to the lime-y gunpowder potatoes, which aren’t new, but could be my new obsession. I dip them in the new side dish of sticky, rich and spicy aubergine chutney.

There are options we don’t try, since 22 dishes would probably defeat most. The new menu also features rara gosht and roomali roti; chicken and mango salad, and masala paratha, among other things.

Although I’ve had a mango kulfi at Dishoom before, I don’t remember the restaurant being particularly big on puddings. No longer. As part of the revamp, they’ve added three to their repertoire..

These include the kala khatta with ‘nice cream’. It’s trifle-esque, served in a sundae glass that has a layer of mascarpone-based custard at the bottom, then ice flakes that have been steeped in kokum and jamun fruit syrup, blueberries, chilli, lime and black salt.

We also try their coconutty fruit crumble, which comes with a pure white scoop of coconut ice-cream, and a helping of orange caramel custard. It’s served with a segment of Terry’s Chocolate Orange, though it’s still three months until Christmas.

And then there are the cocktails. The pale pink Sunny’s star martini is strong and fruity, while the pink shiso spritz is light and sherbet-y.

When it comes to Dishoom, nothing really needed fixing. Its popularity is testament to that.

However, change can keep things interesting, and I don’t think anyone is going to argue with a very large portion of the new keema pau.

Dishoom Edinburgh, 3 a St Andrew Square, www.dishoom.com