Dishoom King's Cross

Dishoom is the homage-restaurant group founded by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, who opened their first site in Covent Garden in 2010 as a loving tribute to the old Irani cafés of Bombay — the all-day institutions built by Zoroastrian Persian immigrants. The King's Cross branch, which opened in 2014, is the largest and most theatrical Dishoom of all, set inside a former Victorian railway transit shed (a godown, in Bombay parlance) on Stable Street behind Granary Square. The main hall recalls a 1920s Irani café, crowned by an art deco clock modelled on the one at Bombay's Victoria Terminus and hung with Indian-Independence-era posters and portraits of Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Sarojini Naidu; more than a hundred restored pieces of period Bombay furniture dress the room. Downstairs, in the building's former stables, sits the Permit Room bar, named for the licences once required to drink under the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949.

Dishoom takes its non-alcoholic drinking as seriously as its cocktails: built by the group's Daru-walla, the list runs to a full run of alcohol-free "Teetotal Tipples" rather than a token mocktail or two. The Sober Summer Negroni layers green apple and apricot over no-alcohol gin, no-alcohol vermouth and a no-alcohol bitter syrup, finished with crisp desiccated apple; the Marine Drive Spritz lengthens Crossip non-alcoholic spirit with Cabernet Rosé grape juice and soda; and the Crystal All-Clear Mojito muddles a house cordial of mint, cardamom and lime with non-alcoholic aperitivo and soda. There is a Teetotal Espresso Martini of Baba's espresso, black cardamom, cinnamon syrup and ginger, alongside more experimental builds — Mr Xavier's Mule (a chai-charged cold brew lashed with ginger beer and orange cordial, plus lion's mane, zinc and turmeric), the Balaram Street Iced CB-Tea (Darjeeling, jasmine and a grapefruit-mango fizz laced with CBD) and the No-Hafta Colada, a frozen pineapple-and-coconut number with lime, pitaya and papaya.

Beyond the mock-cocktails, the Indian soft-drink canon is done properly. Thick, cold lassis run from Mango & Fennel and Rose & Cardamom to Salted, with wellness-leaning options such as the Raspberry Super-Lassi (kefir, tremella mushroom and aloe vera) and a protein-packed Beyond Breakfast lassi. House Chai is brewed the traditional way or with oat milk, and there are cooling sharbats — Watermelon, Passion Fruit and the tart-salty Kala Khatta — plus a fresh Nimbu Soda and nostalgic Indian bottled sodas including Thums Up, Limca and Pallonji's raspberry. Fresh juices, Ayurvedic-leaning wellness shots and Baba's own Chikmagalur coffee round out a genuinely deep teetotal menu, making King's Cross one of the most rewarding places in London to eat and drink well without alcohol.