Ambassador's Clubhouse

Ambassadors Clubhouse is part of the JKS restaurant empire, which includes Gymkhana, Trishna, Brigadiers, Lyles, Sabor, Hoppers and The Hound. This restaurant opened in August 2024 in the pedestrianised Heddon Street, just off Regent Street. The name refers to the grandfather of one of the founders, who was an ambassador and had a summer residence in Dalhousie, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh in northern India.

It is spread over two floors, with an outside heated veranda in addition, and able to seat 140 diners at any one time, including three private dining rooms. The main dining room had smart décor, quite closely spaced tables and low lighting, hence the murky food photographs. The executive chef was Manmeet Shasuna, with joint head chefs and Manmeet Singh (previously at Ooty) and Pasanjeet Oberoi (previously at Bombay Story Indian Kitchen). As well as a la carte there were “feast” tasting menus for both vegetarians (£95) and carnivores (£100), with the a la carte items quite ambitiously priced. Popadoms and chutneys were £10 and a trio of tandoori lamb chops £69 to give you an idea. We opted for the feast menu. The menu rather oddly includes a section titled “bitings”, which seemingly refers to some snacks like chicken kofte and prawn pakode, but I had assumed was some sort of translation error or typo.

The wine list was not available on-line, but ranged in price from £48 to £1,200. For example, there was Duncan Savage Salt River Sauvignon Blanc 2023 at £55 for a wine that will set you back £21 in the high street, Garnier Chablis 2022 at £82 for a wine that retails at £29 and Leeuwin Estate Shiraz Art Series 2018 at £96 for a bottle that will set you back £32 in a shop. For those with the means, there was Antinori Tignanello 2019 at a hefty £600 for a bottle that retails at £169, and Vega Sicilia Unico 2014 at £980 compared to its current market value of £460. 

A mix of different popadoms came with a trio of chutneys that seemed to be made from scratch in the kitchen: white radish (mooli) and walnut chutney, mint chutney and tamarind (imli) chutney were all nice, and the popadoms had good texture. The first course was a choice of chilli cheese pakoras (fritters) and black chickpea (kala chana) chaat. The warm pakoras had a liquid centre of spiced cheese, which was unusual but interesting, while the chaat needed a little more tamarind chutney or yoghurt, as it was a touch dryer than ideal (13/20). 

Barbecued butter chicken chop had a single large piece of chicken on the bone with a butter sauce, but the chicken itself was just a little dryer than ideal (13/20). Wild prawn tandoori with green chutney was a very large prawn indeed, carefully cooked and tender (14/20). The vegetarian alternative was a white radish (mooli) bun kebab rather like a slider, and a paneer tikka with cashew nut sauce. The paneer was a touch grainy, though the sauce was nice enough, but the kebab was rather dry and dull. 

Guinea fowl changezi was a version of a mughlai dish named after Genghis Khan, with origins possibly back in that era. The version here was made with a tomato base, cashews, green chilli and spices and had a creamy texture (13/20). There was also a biryani of cauliflower, fenugreek and chickpeas that had quite aromatic rice (13/20). This was just served in a bowl, but I noticed that the main course biryani served at the next table had a proper pastry seal. A black dhal was excellent, having a smoky taste and very good texture (14/20), while spinach shakarkand had diced sweet potato and had quite reasonable spinach flavour (13/20). Garlic naan and paratha both had excellent texture (14/20).

A chocolate and fig kheer (sweet rice pudding) worked well, with plenty of chocolate flavour and good texture (13/20).  A mango rasmalai had plenty of mango flavour, albeit a slightly grainy texture (13/20). Coffee was from Workshop Coffee, a speciality roaster based in London.Service was well-meaning if rather mixed. Initially, the popadoms were brought, and as we were partway through these the initial course of chaat arrived. This seemed a bit hurried, but not as much as when, barely halfway through the chaat the next course appeared. At this point we called a halt to proceedings, not wanting the main course (and possibly dessert) to be dropped on top of us moments later, and to be fair things slowed down to a merely rapid pace. Once we had overcome this initial hurdle, the service recovered its composure, and at all times the waitress was very polite and attentive, though extra beers were on an entirely different timeline to the rapid-fire delivery of the food.

The bill came to £138 each with 15% service included and just beer to drink. If you drank wine then the bill would be higher, possibly much higher, and indeed ordering a la carte would likely get you a higher bill than the tasting menu, especially if you strayed into territory such as the lobster curry at £65 or tandoori prawns at £45. Despite the chunky (or should that be biting?) pricing, Ambassadors Clubhouse appears to be a roaring commercial success. We had a 6 p.m. booking on a Sunday (all I could get at a week’s notice) and every table was taken, with seats being turned left and right around us. I can only imagine how busy it must be on a Saturday night. Overall, the food was pretty good, though the value for money factor is rather debatable here, at least for me, but clearly not for the crowds descending on the place.