The tide is slowly turning on the Tyneside Indian restaurant scene. It’s getting cooler and classier, with relatively new names such as Khai Khai on Newcastle’s Queen Street making a mark with its ‘fire and smoke’ cooking and the ‘street food’ of Dabbawal in High Bridge and Jesmond.
But the start of the upgrade was a long time ago — 40 years to be exact — with the opening of Sachins on the site of the former Hawthorn Inn on Forth Banks.
Before that there wasn’t really a ‘scene’ at all (although my parents would occasionally take my brother and me as nippers to the the Rajah — believed to be the first Indian restaurant in the city — and the Koh-i-Noor, both in the Cloth Market).
Then, in 1984, along came Sachins. With its pristine white walls and green-stained wood fittings it looked young, bright and modern. Likewise the food – based on the cuisine of the Punjab — was packed with clean, fresh flavours with light notes of herbs and citrus and a world away from heavy, traditional vindaloos. As a young newspaper reporter working in the city I wrote my first ever restaurant review about this dazzling newcomer for The Northern Echo’s ‘Eating Out’ section.
Now in its ruby anniversary year, Sachins continues to change and evolve. Over the years there have been several eye-catching revamps of the interior — but the kitchen remains the star of the show.
Owner and head chef Bob Arora said: “We’re still here and thriving because we have some really loyal and amazing customers, we do our own thing to the best of our ability, we don’t copy rivals and we cook the food with love. Another thing that sets us apart is our healthy approach to cooking and grinding our own spices. It’s time-consuming and expensive but I think it makes a massive difference.
“My favourite dishes are chicken Karahi or chicken Tari Wala and the most popular with customers are butter chicken, the dish formerly known as Jalfrezi and Angel of the North. But if I can’t be bothered to cook my guilty pleasure is beans on toast with lashings of butter!”
Influential (and fiercely independent) food blogger Jeff Lyall of newcastleeats.co.uk reckons the Indian food landscape in the North East — and particularly on Tyneside — is currently undergoing a sea change in the right direction.
He says: “The influence that London felt from the likes of Dishoom and Gymkhana in the early 2010s has finally started to make its way north over the past few years. Newcastle has for decades been a safe choice for the British Indian style of ‘curry house’, but this is changing, with more authentic, and more regional Indian restaurants managing to establish themselves in the city.
“Khai Khai is one that stands out — loved even by Gordon Ramsay, as well as me. Its signature (vegan) tandoori broccoli dish shows that Indian food in Newcastle has significantly evolved over the past forty years. Interestingly, Khai Khai sits in the old home of Vujon, a Newcastle curry institution that called the Quayside its home for almost three decades, but demonstrates that customers demand more — be that new flavours, twists on classics, or somewhere more ‘Instagrammable’.
“Restaurants designed seemingly entirely for social media is a trend which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. For every flavour-focused, no-frills gem like Dosa Kitchen, there are a dozen ‘style over substance’ restaurants that come and go once the initial influencer hype dies down. Which really makes the staying power of Sachins even more remarkable.”
So raise a glass to Sachins — always evolving and re-inventing — and still my ‘go-to’ for a Ruby Murray.
Guest post with thanks to Anne Graham