Delhi Grill (CLOSED)

A lively canteen-style joint, Delhi Grill provides a focused menu of home-style Punjabi dishes – along with wraps sold from a smart stall outside in Chapel Market during the day. Inside, the walls are plastered with Bollywood posters and Indian newspapers; corrugated iron and stencilled lettering contribute to a Slumdog Millionaire aesthetic.

The selection of street-food starters such as samosa chat are more in keeping with this mood than the Indian-restaurant standard chicken tikka. The cooking shows that the kitchen isn’t following the usual formula, but is prepared to go out and do its own thing, so tilapia with coriander and coconut milk joins hearty slow-cooked rogan josh, a biriani and chicken karahi on the menu. There’s a lightness to the preparation, evident in a punjabi prawn masala with fresh flavours of peppers, tomato and ginger.

Vegetarians are very well provided for, though the aloo baingan featured much more potato than aubergine in a thin sauce. Meat-free alternatives include chana, bhindi and tarka dal. Beans and greens salad was a refreshing if not especially exciting mix of seemingly tinned pulses and cucumber. Insistent bangla beats and unyielding seats make this venue more of a healthy, spicy pit-stop than somewhere to linger.