Jamavar London

I have written previously about Jamavar, its heritage in India and the background of its highly experienced head chef Surender Mohan. Jamavar is located just off Berkeley Square and is smartly decorated as well as seemingly always busy.

There was a tasting menu at £125, a slightly shorter four course tasting menu at £95 and a full a la carte menu. We menu for the full tasting menu tonight. This started with a dish of kulchas and caviar. Kulchas are a rather like naan but made with refined flour and are a little softer in texture.  These were lovely, served hot and being soft in texture. This was top-notch Indian bread making; to be honest I didn’t really think the beluga caviar was necessary (16/20). 

Soft shell crab was fried and flavoured with Tellicherry pepper and garlic. On the side were plum chutney, garlic chips & homemade garlic pickle. The soft shell crab avoided the greasiness that can often afflict this dish, and the plum chutney was a nice balance to the richness of the fried crab. The garlic pickle was excellent and was packed with garlic flavour (15/20).

Malai stone bass tikka was as good as ever. This had been marinated with mace and green cardamom before being cooked in the tandoor, and was served with an avocado & mint chutney. The fish was superbly cooked, having lovely texture and a pleasing flavour from the blend of spices (17/20). 

Classic chicken tikka had pieces of chicken that had been marinated in spices before being cooked in the tandoor. This came with chillies, pickled radish and yoghurt. The chicken was extremely tender and has a lovely balance of spices (16/20). Adraki lamb chop was cooked medium rare (you could actually specify how much you wanted it cooked) and was flavoured with royal cumin, served with a fennel, ginger & carrot salad (16/20).

Butter chicken used Suffolk corn-fed chicken, char-grilled pulled chicken, and a rich sauce of tomato and fenugreek along with an amount of better it was probably best not to contemplate. It tasted lovely (16/20). Malvanai prawn curry had king prawns, coconut milk, tamarind and a traditional Malvan spice mix. The prawns were tender and the sweet and sour tamarind worked well (15/20) On the side was an excellent makhani dhal, cooked overnight and having very good texture, with a smoky hint of flavour (16/20). Pala paneer had deep spinach flavour (15/20)

For dessert, pistachio milk cake had cream cheese, vanilla & rose petals as accompaniments, and had plenty of pistachio flavour (15/20). Even better was rasmalai of mango, with wheat biscuit, Alphonso mango cream & berry chutney. This was refreshing and prettily presented (16/20).

I was seeing some old friends tonight and was being treated, so didn’t see a bill. If you ordered a la carte and ordered in a modest way from the wine list then a typical cost per person might be around £110 or so.

Further reviews: 05th Jul 2024 | 18th Jul 2022 | 30th Nov 2021 | 07th Aug 2021 | 06th Aug 2019 | 04th Aug 2018 | 24th Oct 2017 | 24th Feb 2017 | 09th Dec 2016