London’s New City Indian Room Leads With a Goan Aunt’s Balchao and Mathania Chillies

Bulbul soft-opened at 25 Tudor Street ahead of a September 1 launch, with Rohan D’Souza and Twinkle Keswani putting named regional plates on a Blackfriars share-plate card.

Updated August 28, 2026United Kingdom · India

london
bulbul
goan
rajasthani

Orange-spiced rice with chicken and a boiled egg on a banana leaf, with brass bowls of raita and curry, at Bulbul in Blackfriars — Photo: Key & Quill · Courtesy of Bulbul · Restaurant press / marketing use via Time Out coverage credit

Aunty Marie’s Goan shrimp balchao lands at Bulbul on crisp melba toast after the prawns sit forty-eight hours in a vinegar-chilli paste. Across the table, Mewari laal maas is braised with Mathania chillies, the long reds grown near Jodhpur that colour Rajasthan’s red-meat gravy and give it a sharp, aromatic heat. The card keeps naming its sources: the aunt, the village chilli, the coast.

Bulbul is the first London restaurant from chef Rohan D’Souza and restaurateur Twinkle Keswani, who already run rooms across India, including Pisco by the Beach in Anjuna, Goa, Montagne in Leh, and The Backwaters in Kochi. Soft service started in late July at 25 Tudor Street, EC4Y 0DD, inside a converted printing press. The official launch is September 1. D’Souza trained in London years ago with Marco Pierre White and James Martin before building that India portfolio. This room is the return trip.

Three regional chefs, one City kitchen

Keswani won Young Restaurateur of the Year – West at the ET HospitalityWorld awards in 2023. She and D’Souza spent about two years travelling for the card: home kitchens, markets, toddy shops, street counters. In London they cook with chefs Yash and Ashfaq Shaikh, each drawn from a different regional lane. The menu runs small plates and larger share plates, with a live charcoal tandoor section.

That structure changes how you order. Put a Goan vinegar pickle beside a Rajasthani Mathania gravy beside a Tamil crab dosa and you are reading the room the way the kitchen built it.

What the named dishes actually are

Balchao is Goa’s pickle-cook method: dried red chillies and spices ground with vinegar, often toddy vinegar at home, then used to hold prawns, fish, or pork until the paste tastes almost bottled. Bulbul’s Aunty Marie version leans on that ageing step and plates it as a snack. Dorothy’s braised Goan chorizo sausages, another D’Souza family plate, come in chorizo fat with banana shallots and green chilli, with warm poi, the Goan bread, on the side.

Laal maas is the Rajasthani red-meat gravy that once used wild game and now usually uses lamb or mutton. Mathania chillies supply colour and heat that is not the same as Kashmiri colour-chillies or Guntur burn. When a London menu names Mathania, taste whether the paste carries that sharp aroma or reads as generic red curry powder.

Elsewhere on the opening card: Forest Pepper Crab Dosa, a Tamil-style dosa stuffed with crab in forest-pepper masala with house pickle; Lobster Ghee Roast built on Mangalorean ghee-roast masala with cauliflower poriyal purée; and Jim Corbett Hunter’s Murgh Mussallam, a Mughlai chicken slow-cooked with whole spices. Cocktails run under a Flight of Bulbul brief, including a Negroni with nannari-infused gin and sandalwood hydrosol, plus Indian gin and single malt lists.

How to use the room

Confirm booking and hours before you go; soft launch has been seating guests since late July, with the official launch set for September 1.
Share plates across coasts: one Goan vinegar plate, one Rajasthani chilli gravy, one South Indian dosa or ghee roast.
Ask which chilli paste is in the laal maas that night. Mathania is the claim worth checking.
The leopard-print room and 10-seat private dining space are part of the evening. Order for the named recipes.

London already has Michelin-lane Indian rooms and strong Desi pubs. A City address that puts Mathania, Mangalore, and a Goan aunt’s balchao on the same share-plate card is still rare. Bulbul is early. Watch whether those names still taste distinct once the soft launch ends.