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[title]‘This chicken kebab, that’s the original secret recipe. When my mum started this place, she made a single dish [at a time] and cooked whatever she fancied,’ says Tehreem Riaz. A warm, straight-talking woman, Riaz is the owner of Raavi Kebab, which has been serving Pakistani food on Drummond Street since 1975 – many of the dishes on the menu have been unchanged since then. ‘These are the lamb kebabs, which is a recipe from Lahore that my dad’s friend made him swear on the Holy Qur’an not to share,’ says Riaz. In on the secret is chef Khalid Jamil, a close family friend trained in the kitchen arts by Riaz’s dad, who was one of the first South Asians to come to Drummond Street in the 1960s.
And then there’s the nihari, the lamb shank that takes a day and a half to cook. As Riaz greets a group at the next table, they tell her: ‘We asked a chef we know: ‘‘where’s the best place to eat in London?’’ He told us to come here and have the lamb shank.’ Riaz nods, smiling – she knows it’s the real deal. Riaz is in the business of making people happy: ‘People long for connection, and to eat together. People long for a real story, which is what we have here on Drummond Street.’
Small street, big charisma
I’ve told everyone I know about the meal I had at Raavi Kebab. Riaz’s place is unassuming, with its white walls and blue-checked tablecloths, but as Londoners know, that’s sometimes a hallmark of a real gem. I left Drummond Street that day with that rare feeling you get when you’ve discovered something special – this is the kind of place that makes you feel excited about the city and everything it has to offer. Raavi Kebab is one of several South Asian restaurants on Drummond Street that inspires this kind of devotion among its clientele. This isn’t just about having a nice meal, but about experiencing something that feels genuine and good.
Drummond Street is an open secret. It’s incredibly central, and surprisingly small – the main stretch is two short blocks between Euston Station and Regent’s Park. Most of the restaurants are Bangladeshi, several of them vegetarian: Diwana opened in 1971, and may well be the country’s first South Asian vegetarian restaurant. Just like Chutneys down the street, they serve an all-you-can-eat buffet every day of the week.
This is the original location for Ambala, the confectioners established in 1965, meanwhile Gupta’s has been serving sweet and savoury snacks here since the 1970s. Patak’s first started making their famous pickles in their Drummond Street grocery store. There’s a few residential streets off Drummond Street and a fair few other businesses too, including a theatre, dry cleaners, a pharmacy (the spot was once an army surplus store where the Beatles found their Sgt. Pepper jackets), and the Grade II-listed Crown & Anchor pub. Remarkably, there are no chains – every business here is independent.
A London legend at risk
But right now, Drummond Street is fighting for its future. Central London’s original haven for South Asian food has been seriously damaged by HS2, the high speed rail network originally planned between London, Birmingham and Manchester. This required a total overhaul of London Euston station, putting Drummond Street on the doorstep of a building site that’s been going since 2017. The station was originally scheduled to be finished by 2026, but delays means we likely won’t see HS2 trains run into Euston until between 2031 and 2035. The disruption has been so severe that traders say HS2 has been worse for them than Covid – and already in 2019, 87 percent of local businesses reported a decline in footfall.
Drummond Street is only a block or so from Euston station, but this blessing has turned into a curse. Years of ever-changing roadblocks have made the street hard to find – at its worst it was a three-point turn to get to Drummond Street, and regulars would call the restaurants asking how to get there. For years there was endless digging up of pavements, heavy machinery everywhere, and demolition of offices, two hotels, and the beloved Bree Louise pub – piling one blow on top of another for the foot traffic to Drummond Street.
When you get to Euston station today, the signs for Drummond Street will take you around the back, past bike racks, and through a corridor of construction hoarding adorned with colourful pictures of curries and smiling traders, with portholes where you can peek at the desert of rubble that lies beyond. At least you don’t get lost anymore, but the newfound peace is unsettling: HS2 has paused construction on the tunnel between Euston and Old Oak Common, meaning the end-date has spiralled years into the future, prolonging the chaos. The big question: can Drummond Street survive that long?
HS2 and the movable feast
‘If it got done as they promised, within the time frame, it would have been amazing. It would have been better than King’s Cross,’ says Oli Uddin, chair of the Drummond Street Traders Association and owner of i-Optix opticians. We’re looking at a copy of the most recent HS2 information booklet, dated November 2022, which has a drawing of a station exit planned right on Drummond Street – today it’s a big hole in the ground. Uddin is sharply dressed with an air of gentle authority about him: he seems to know everything that’s going on in the street, including everyone else I’ve spoken to. Uddin’s shop is right next to the lauded station exit, and as we’re talking, a man wearing a blue HS2 high-vis emblazoned with the words ‘Here to help’ is pacing along the hoardings. (When I speak to him later, he explains he’s here to assist people, ‘as it’s a bit of a maze around here’.)
I met Uddin shortly after the government announced that HS2 will require private funding to reach Euston Station, meaning the future of the Drummond Street exit is up in the air. But after years of delays, Uddin is hopeful that maybe things can be done faster now – or at least some of the empty land could be released for temporary use by the community. When I reached out to HS2 they did not answer my question about the value of Drummond Street to the project, but a spokesperson said: ‘We try to minimise impacts on local people and businesses as much as possible, and continue to engage with the community, voluntary and third sector organisations to develop ideas and identify meanwhile use projects,’ such as a new temporary garden on Hampstead Road.
The irony is not lost on Uddin that the tiny street that he grew up on is now threatened with extinction by a situation that’s playing out on a national level. Asked about the association’s relationship with the project, he says: ‘It started quite negativity, but as the years have gone by, we’ve reached good communication with HS2’. Now, they have regular meetings. ‘Initially there were a lot of issues,’ says Uddin, explaining that the size of the project requires dealing with lots of different parties. It was quite the battle to get those signs helping people find their way to Drummond Street installed in and around the station, to name one issue: ‘Network Rail thought it would affect their tenants, [the restaurants] inside the station.’
The ingredients for a foodie destination
But HS2 isn’t the only issue affecting Drummond Street. Uddin lists off Brexit, Covid, people working from home, and now, the cost of living crisis. ‘It’s a combination of things that has affected the street,’ he says. ‘Traders here are holding on – that’s about it. But holding on for how long? Is a massive question mark.’ Several places have had to reduce staff, or cut hours. ‘People are coming back and restaurants are getting busier, but to what extent? We don't know yet.’
Traders here are holding on – that’s about it. But for how long?
Uddin is proud of the authentic food you can only get here, and wants more people to know about it: ‘If you want modern, go to Dishoom – it’s rubbish!’ He laughs. ‘People travel here from far away, because they want that unique taste.’ They’re working on spreading the word – right now the street is full of tradesmen working on the vision for a new Drummond Street. This is overseen by Euston Town Business Improvement District, which has a budget of £650,000 from HS2’s Business & Local Economy Fund, plus an additional £200,000 from Euston Town. The goal is to transform Drummond Street from an open secret among locals, office workers and tourists, and turn it into a London foodie destination that people will travel to experience.
Soon the street will have new shopfronts, colourful street furniture and planting, two big murals, plus banners and festoon lighting that will create a sense of arrival. This summer saw the Spice Sundowner street party, and the Winter Festival is coming up on November 30, bringing food, DJs, dance groups, and activities like henna and Islamic calligraphy. ‘This unique hub of independent businesses has amazing stories to tell: it has authentic recipes and a genuine connection to the area that goes back generations,’ says Simon Pitkeathley, CEO of Euston Town BID. ‘We must treasure [Drummond Street], because the identity and character that places like this bring to London cannot be replaced.’
A family of businesses
Pitkeathley thinks we have every reason to be optimistic for Drummond Street. The hardest part is already nailed – the food is exceptional – and Drummond Street is a destination for home cooks as well. ‘People come here from far away, as they have faith that if they can’t find it anywhere else, they will find it here,’ says Harish Baguty, owner of the Indian Spice Shop.
Baguty’s shop seems to expand as you step inside, with shelves unfolding around more corners than seem physically possible. A gentle presence, Baguty effortlessly switches between languages as people come up to him with questions, pointing them towards the right shelf. There’s kewra water for biryanis, liquorice (‘good for the cough’), jaggery, popped lotus seeds, Kashmiri chillis (‘it gives a nice colour and flavour but not hotness’), and even a whole dried coconut. ‘Once people come inside they realise, this is spice heaven,’ says Baguty, who’s run the Spice Shop for nearly 25 years. ‘It’s a lovely street. It’s mainly a Bangladeshi community, and it’s like a family. People come for a meal, they shop from us, they buy sweets across the street. [Our success] is related to one another.’
Baguty says things are improving for trade now that there’s better access to Drummond Street, and he’s looking forward to Diwali on November 12, which is an annual highlight. ‘We’re busy for days, we don’t have time for anything, none of us. People queue at the sweet shops,’ he says, pointing towards Ambala and Gupta’s. While the street is active this Tuesday lunchtime, there are no queues on the day of my visit, not like there used to be. ‘Before, we used to have queues outside the restaurants before they opened for the buffet at noon,’ says Baguty. ‘You can eat as much as you like and it’s not expensive. Quality food, freshly cooked – you don’t get this service elsewhere.’
Drummond Street is hanging on
A few doors up at Raavi Kebab, Tehreem Riaz agrees that Drummond Street is a family, with people helping each other out and having friendly rivalries. But the last few winters were really hard: ‘At its worst, people looked grim. But I think we’re past the danger point now,’ says Riaz. One problem is that business has become more unpredictable: ‘The good days are really good, and then there’ll be really bad days. You can’t really predict anymore, and it makes it hard to work out stock and staffing.’
I sat eating a perfectly spiced thali that transported me straight back to India, the last place I tasted anything like it
In the middle of everything there’s one thing that’s remarkable: all the South Asian restaurants that were there before HS2 are still there. You wouldn’t think it from all the negative headlines proclaiming the end of Drummond Street, and I was expecting to find a dying road full of shuttered shopfronts. But even when I return on a rainy Wednesday lunchtime I find there’s people heading there. At Ravi Shankar Bhelpoori House I sat next to students, office workers and locals, eating a perfectly spiced thali that transported me straight back to India, the last place I tasted anything like it.
Riaz hopes Drummond Street can become well enough known to thrive, but not so big that it loses its charm – Raavi Kebab is a handmade operation, and there’s a limit to how many meals they can make per day. ‘We will never compromise on the food,’ says Riaz as she walks me out, pausing next to a framed photo of her dad, posing next to his beloved restaurant. ‘As a small business owner, you have to be an eternal optimist, and spill your guts out.’
The Drummond Street Winter Festival is on November 30, from 6pm. To keep up with events on Drummond Street, follow Euston Town BID at the Camden Green Loop Instagram. The restaurants are open daily.