Permit Room Portobello

Dishoom's first standalone Permit Room in London took over 186 Portobello Road at the start of 2025, spinning out a concept the group had run as in-restaurant bars since its early Bombay-cafe days. The name is a wink at Bombay's drinking laws: in prohibition-era Bombay, drinking legally required a government-issued permit, and the city's permit rooms were where that drinking happened. The Portobello outpost turns the history on its head. This is an all-day cafe-bar where the drinking-optional side of the menu gets the same attention as the boozy side, and nobody checks any papers. The room runs from morning chai through to a late bar shift, with the group's Irani-cafe styling dialled into a corner site on one of west London's most walked streets, and the kitchen sends out Dishoom's comfort cooking from open to close.

The zero-proof list is the reason it earns a place in this directory. Alongside house chai and a run of Bombay sodas, the teetotal section carries real builds rather than juice: the Sober Summer Negroni layers green apple and apricot over no-alcohol gin, vermouth and bitter syrups, and the bar rotates seasonal alcohol-free specials and collaborations through the list. Prices sit closer to the group's cafes than to Notting Hill cocktail rates, which matters when a round of zero-proof drinks so often costs the same as the alcoholic version elsewhere. Reservations are taken with a share of tables held back for walk-ins, and the room stays open past midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. That combination is rarer than it should be in west London: most of the area's late rooms are wine-led or club-adjacent, and most of its alcohol-free options close with the coffee machines. A standalone bar from a group this practised at hospitality, holding real hours and writing its teetotal list with actual intent, fills a genuine gap on the western side of the city.