Covent Garden was crammed with tourists and weekenders looking for something to take their mind off the inevitable granular tick of sand leading them back to the harrowing reality of work on Monday morning. They flocked around the ledge overlooking one of the food squares enthralled by a group of musicians being led by a mohawk opera singer that looked like Pavaroti gone punk. We were looking for somewhere to eat and I had a couple of restaurants in mind, but when we looked down with the others on the mohawk beast of a man blasting out "just one corneto", or something like that, we saw Cafe Chutney. After some miscommunication with my hot 'date' we found ourselves inside the place, which is set down in an alcoved corner of the square. The menu was small, but loaded with some authentic indian dishes that we'd never heard of before. Despite this, I opted for the the lamb curry that attracted my Northern appetite with mention of a 'rich gravy'. However, Emily went for an exotic purri dish.
It wasn't long before they arrived and we were both pretty pleased with our choices. We'd adopted a habit of sharing our food a while ago, so I got a chance to try both dishes. Em's was a strange collection of unexpected flavours and textures that seemed to work well somehow and mine was a rich and tasty curry with lush chunks of lamb and a little popadom (it was bizarrely little in fact).
For less than £15 we ate pretty well and on the way out the lady that owned the place randomly started chatting with us, which was pretty sweet. Apparently Cafe Chutney had only been open for six weeks and she still seemed nervous about the whole venture. Hopefully it'll be a big hit, because it was a class find for us and there are probably few restaurants left in London where the owner isn't a stuck up git that wouldn't doff his cap at you on the way out, let alone stop to chat.
4/5
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Cafe Chutney restaurant review - Covent Garden
I arrived at Covent Garden with a girl I've been dating for a while. I'm pretty surprised I've gotten away with calling it dating for so long, but it seems to be working well at the moment. We hadn't been heading towards Cafe Chutney, in fact we hadn't even heard of Cafe Chutney before, but it turned out to be a pretty nice stumble.