Dakhin

Far from your run-of-the-mill British curry house, Dakhin has been bringing the lesser-experienced flavours of Southern India to Glasgow – the first restaurant in Scotland to do so – for over a decade. It remains a unique, upscale and very appealing proposition.

Between the bustle from the kitchen hatch and the buzz of the Merchant City’s busy Candleriggs thoroughfare below, the place never really feels quiet even when the dining room’s empty. Southern Indian cuisine – more specifically, that from the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh – places an emphasis on mild, subtle flavours. The common blights of oil, grease and garish colourings are eschewed in favour of rice, coconut, and lentil-based dishes, prepared with liberal doses of coconut milk, resulting in a more forgiving digestive experience.

There are chicken, lamb and vegetarian options aplenty, with several regional specialities to choose from based around each core ingredient. The house signature dish is undoubtedly the dosa: a large rolled crêpe made from finely ground rice and lentils, stuffed with fillings of your choice and cooked on a griddle. In the case of the long, thin and crispy paper dosa – popular for the spectacle as much as anything else – they can be up to two or three feet long. The highly recommended Mysore masala dosa comes smeared with tangy red chutney and stuffed with a paste of mashed potatoes, onions and tomatoes.

Seafood options include meen moilee (monkfish pieces cooked in a mild sauce of tomato, onion and coconut, flavoured with ginger, turmeric and lemon juice) and royyalu vepuda (king prawns prepared in a thick sauce of caramelised onions, tomato, ginger and garlic). Made with fish fresh from Scottish waters, they’re a delicious fusion of the local and the exotic.