The restaurant you need to try.

We’ve come a long way since the chicken tikka masala assumed the title of the UK’s favourite dish back in 1997. That creamy British-Indian hybrid, along with other anglicised dishes modified for the British palate, has helped frame British perceptions of Indian food for decades, prompting prominent Indian food writer Ms Madhur Jaffrey to label it “cheap spicy food to go with beer” after arriving in the UK. Although an integral part of our restaurant scene, the traditional curry house – 12,000 strong in the UK – hasn’t always mirrored the abundant cuisine on offer in India.

Yet over the past couple of years, a new generation of chefs have broadened our vocabulary, with authentic dishes from India’s diverse regions – from the tandoor-grilled meats of Kashmir to Hyderabad’s biryanis, Goan fish curries or Gujarati thalis – arriving on our plates alongside a wealth of new ingredients. Playing a part in this recent revival are two friends from university, Mr Will Bowlby and Mr Rik Campbell, who launched Kricket in 2015 from a shipping container in Brixton.

Initially billed as a small plates and cocktails venue, Kricket’s twist on Indian cuisine proved popular enough for the pair to launch a permanent site in Soho last year. Menus are overseen by Mr Bowlby, who moved to Mumbai to run a restaurant aged 24. “Being immersed in the food there, I became very interested in what could be done in the UK,” he says. “Back here, it was so limited at the time – you had traditional curry houses, a few high-end establishments and Dishoom had just started out. We felt there was room for improvement in the standard of the food and its accessibility.”

This year sees Kricket expand with two new venues – a “testing kitchen” in Brixton, which opened last month, and a site at the revamped BBC Television Centre in west London coming this autumn – as the pair gather momentum, helped by their sharing plates that meld high-end British produce with authentic flavours. “There’s a lot of inspiration from the south – Kerala and Goa – and our fish dishes draw inspiration from Bengal, where people eat a lot more seafood,” says Mr Bowlby. “But inspiration comes from everywhere and it can depend totally on the season.”

Rather than stick to formula, Messrs Bowlby and Campbell have allowed new ideas and experimentation to determine a constantly evolving menu. “One of the first dishes we developed was the samphire pakora, which is hugely popular,” says Mr Bowlby. “Samphire isn’t really an ingredient you find in India, but pakora [spiced fritters] you find everywhere, so it’s a new idea. Other unusual things include raw dishes such as oysters and raw meat, which aren’t things you’d traditionally associate with Indian food.”

Another staple is the Keralan fried chicken, which – according to Mr Bowlby – was the result of a happy accident. “We didn’t have a tandoor oven in our shipping container and I wanted to do a tandoori chicken,” he says. “I tried adjusting the marinade, put it in the deep-fat fryer and tested it on our friends a few weeks before opening – people now get upset if we’ve run out.”

Kricket’s drinks menu mirrors the duo’s innovative culinary approach. “We try to use ingredients from the kitchen, whether that’s curry leaves, cardamom-infused bourbon or mangoes and where we can we’ll use by-products,” says Mr Campbell, of a cocktail list that includes a standout samphire margarita. “Cocktails are a big part of Kricket – we definitely encourage people to start with one, but we also stock good local beers; we haven’t sold our souls to Cobra or Kingfisher yet.”

Their eclectic Soho space features vibrant tiling, rough-plastered walls and artwork brought back from travels to India although they’ve been careful not to turn it into what they call a “Bollywood parody”. At its heart lies an open kitchen – a key part of what marks Kricket out from other Indian restaurants. “Our open kitchen dispels any myths around Indian cuisine,” says Mr Bowlby. “We want everything on show and that’s rare for an Indian kitchen.”

As Kricket expands, the pair are adamant that each site will have its own character and dishes. The Brixton space will be where they try new things, while White City boasts outdoor seating and a big communal table. “Going to a restaurant now is about far more than just the food. It’s about the atmosphere the service and the brand,” says Mr Campbell. “You have to build yourself as a whole package and hopefully that’s what we’re starting to do.”

kricket.co.uk