The West End has plenty of high-end restaurants, including some Indian, Chinese and Japanese ones these days, where subtle, surprising food comes at an understandably hefty price. It is also awash with Asian outlets where you can fill up fast on a big bowl of noodles for next to nothing. A venue that offers the gastronomic experience of the former for the price tag of the latter is surely everyone’s Holy Grail. Search no longer: just head straight to this brilliant modern Indian seconds from Piccadilly Circus.

The Venue
Amid a narrow, unprepossessing street of restaurants, mainly chains and standard Indians, Chowki is two side-by-side rooms of long, refectory-style tables with backless leather cubes for seats. Warm colours and subdued lighting prevent it from feeling like a college canteen, instead giving it a cool, cosy vibe.

The Atmosphere
The clientele is predominantly young and casual with a smattering of families with children and pairs of businessmen far from home. Dressing up is not the order of the day, as Chowki’s speedy service and astonishingly low prices prevent it from being perceived as a destination restaurant, although many destination restaurants could learn a thing or three from its kitchen. The bare wooden floor and undressed windows mean sound bounces around, so you may have to shout if you and your companion end up sitting next to a large group of party animals. The black-clad waiters are unfailingly friendly and efficient in the main.

The Food
Chowki’s brilliant concept is to showcase three different regional cuisines each month. Whilst you can order a la carte, it’s best to go for one of the regional feasts: select one of about three starters and three mains from your chosen region, plus a dessert, for £14.95. Whilst you can order extra rice, breads and side dishes, what comes to your table is so balanced and generous, it’s hard to see why anyone would. Indeed, the waiters can be heard advising against it.

Arriving speedily from the Calcutta selection, fried shrimp cutlets are two crisply coated balls filled with smooth, mashed vegetables and pieces of shrimp. Cardamom is the dominant note of the warm, subtle, satisfying spicing. Also from the Calcutta options, a generous-sized, juicy-fleshed mackerel fillet is shallow fried to perfect crispness. Again, the spicing is assured, this time with mustard seed to the fore, and sufficiently restrained not to overpower the fish.

The presentation of the mains is quite something: a half moon-shaped plate carries little oval bowls containing, on this occasion, pilau rice with tiny cubes of curd cheese, dahl, and a vegetable curry featuring potato, carrot, sweet corn and broad beans. A final bowl holds your main course choice. You decant and mix small amounts of the various components on a separate plate – it’s good fun and feels rather chic. A basket of breads – on this occasion, pea-stuffed tandoori rotis – completes the feast. Of the mains, chicken on the bone with potatoes and cauliflower is hearty and tasty with a sweet, hot, tomato-based sauce. Meanwhile, chunks of tender, flaking king fish come in a spicy curry sauce with a hint of cumin and the tang of tamarind. Top marks all round.

Indian puddings can be an acquired taste, and fresh curd cheese dumplings are a challenge to the Western palate. The strong saffron flavour is intriguing and the spongy texture not unpleasant, but the syrup in which they have soaked is wince-inducingly sweet. One small dumpling constitutes a portion and it is enough! Better to go off-plan and treat yourself, for an additional £2.95, to a sorbet (mango or raspberry), kulfi (mango or pistachio) or ice cream (vanilla, chocolate or strawberry).

The Drink
Nine cocktails, all at a modest £5.95, include twists on classics like mango daiquiri and green tea mojito. Five non-alcoholic cocktails are about £3.75. There are nine whites and nine reds, plus three Indian wines, three of each and all the Indian wines are available by the glass, from £10.95 to £18.50. Three roses (from £13.95), three sparklers (£19.95 - £39.95), bottled beers like Tiger and Cobra (£2.75 for 330ml, £4.50 for 660ml), draught lager (£3.90 a pint), various spirits with mixers, and liqueurs complete the booze options. You can round off your meal with a tea – Earl Grey, peppermint or camomile, for example – for £1.50. A filter coffee (with or without caffeine), latte, cappuccino or espresso is yours for £1.75 or £1.95.

The Last Word
For the past five years, Chowki has served generous portions of assured, elegant, unusual Indian cuisine in cool surroundings in the heart of the West End at suburban curry house prices. How they make a profit is a mystery. What a pity the vast majority of Central London eateries don’t know their secret.

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