Dastaan

I have written previously about the background of the founders of Dastaan, a gem of a restaurant in an unlikely location in Ewell. The small, simple dining room in a terrace of shops off a main road is not where you expect to encounter some of the very best Indian cooking in the UK, yet that is the level being achieved here. It has sister restaurants The Kokum and Black Salt, as well as a Dastaan branch in Leeds.

Kale and spinach bhajias (£6.50) featured potato, onions, tamarind and mint chutney. They are a far cry from the soggy onion bhajias that most of us have encountered in Indian restaurants in the UK. The version here is crisp and dry, but with enough tamarind to bring some sweetness to balance the vegetables. The flavour balance is absolutely superb. This dish is proof that you can produce terrific food with humble ingredients if you have enough skill (17/20). 

Tandoori lamb chops (£10.50 each) are a joy here, the lamb still pink in the middle and the spicy marinade doing a fine job of enhancing the flavour of the meat. Quite often this dish can be overcooked in Indian restaurants, but not here. The dish is completed by mooli (daikon) laced with mustard, the earthy flavour of the radish working really well with the lamb (16/20).

Red pepper tiger prawns (£15) were cooked in the tandoor and came with tomato and red chilli chutney. These large prawns were marinated with spices before cooking and, as always seems to be the case here, the precision of cooking of these large prawns was remarkable. The prawns were beautifully tender, their natural sweetness nicely enhanced by the spice blend. This dish was a delight (17/20).

Achari poussin (£12.50) was half a baby chicken cooked with pickling spice. This was a new dish on the menu, and the chicken was certainly very tender, with the pickling spice nicely livening up the taste of the meat (15/20). Methi chicken (£14) was a joy as always, the use of fresh fenugreek leaves giving the meat a strong and distinctive taste, the chicken itself being very tender. This is a superb example of the classic Hyderabadi methi chicken dish (16/20).

Pork vindaloo (£15) is a dish that originates from Goa. This version used a Goan spice blend and toddy vinegar. The latter is a Goan concoction made from fermented sap from coconut palm trees. The pork was very tender and the sharpness of the vinegar is an excellent balance for the richness of the pork, the dish being nicely enlivened by spices (16/20). 

Crab curry (£18) was a new dish on the menu and I’m not sure that it works that well. I recall eating a similar dish in Trishna in India and it had the same issue, namely that there was a lot of ghee used (grotesquely so in the Mumbai version). The dish, using a mix of both brown and white meat from Dorset crabs with some added garlic, was nice enough to eat in a rich kind of way, but I don’t think it is in the league of the other dishes here (13/20). 

I was pleased to see that khumb palak (£7.50) was back on the menu after a temporary absence. This is an absolutely superb spinach dish that achieves remarkable concentration of spinach flavour (easily 16/20). You can try it for yourself at home as this is one of the recipes in Dastaan’s cookbook; the recipe works very well, even in my inexpert hands.

Service was very good. The bill came to £107 per person, with plenty of their best wine to drink and enough food left for a further meal. If you drank beer and ordered a wiser amount of food then a typical cost per head might come to around £55. The food at Dastaan is absolutely superb. There may not be a grand piano in the corner of the room, but the food quality here cannot be bettered in London even at the fanciest Michelin-starred Indian restaurants.

Further reviews: 05th May 2024 | 17th May 2022 | 19th Mar 2022 | 23rd Aug 2021 | 13th Jul 2021 | 17th Aug 2020 | 08th Oct 2019 | 05th Jun 2019 | 29th Sep 2018 | 30th Dec 2017 | 11th Jul 2017 | 30th Apr 2017