Kiplings

I lived in Manchester for 10 years and many of the curry houses are better than any in London. Kiplings is one of the better ones I have tried. Kiplings is an upmarket restaurant with very polite staff and a relaxed (well behaved!) atmosphere, not a place to go when you are hammered! The food is very good and we get takeaways fairly regularly, which have a discount and make it pretty good value (for London).
I’m a fan of the chicken Madras, chicken Biryani, and lamb jalfrezi. The naan are a bit small, so order one each if you are hungry!

From being one of the best Indian restaurants in town, Kipling’s has lost it. Having been a regular for years, it pains me to say that the food has gone downhill so much over the last year or so that I won’t be going back. With the last three visits being progressively more disappointing, I decided to give it one final test last night by ordering their signature ‘Rudyard lamb’ dish. Alas, what was one of their most uniquely flavourful dishes with meat that melted in the mouth is now just thick lamb chunks in bland, mustardy gravy. Other previously mouthwatering mains have been rendered equally tasteless so I can only assume they’ve had a change (or two) of chef. They need to find another one who knows something about the art of flavour. Soon.

I think my earlier review of this place may have been deleted possibly because I mentioned a place in East Finchley by way of comparison. Anyway
I’ve lived almost opposite this restaurant for more than five years. I went in there with a friend the night I moved in and the food was uninspired and costly. (I moved here after living near Brick Lane for many years so I have eaten quite a bit of more or less uninspired curry!)
After that I went over the road to get a takeaway about once a year. Some of the dishes were okay to start with the saffron rice, the liver hazri. On the other hand there were obviously daft things on the menu like the famous Punjabi haddock dish. Punjab is landlocked. Haddock lives in the North Atlantic. Ahem. Generally speaking, most dishes were extremely bland.
A couple of years ago I went and ordered a takeaway. The place was a complete madhouse with a whole crowd of very loud bottle-​blonde women causing chaos and some bloke apparently having ordered a take away and them having lost his order so he had to order again. When I finally got the food home the saffron rice was Chinese fried rice with a vaguely curry flavour. Seriously. This actually happened.
Not surprisingly, that was the last straw.
If you’re quite well off and want to eat not very good curry with other quite well off people while a cocktail piano tinkles in the background then this is the place for you. If you’ve ever been to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Neasden etc you’ll laugh. Or cry.

i love this place go regularly, emily :)

The WORST indian meal i have ever eaten (I am Indian) how this place is still going is truly mind boggling.
Nice décor — shame about the food — best to avoid!
This should be zero stars but you cant do that on Qype.

I haven’t been too Kiplings for donkeys years. Whilst in the neighbourhood we decided to give it a visit, due to the long wait at a close by restaurant I did want to go to. Kiplings were able to seat us quickly — perhaps a sign of what was to come.
I can’t tell if it’s my food tastes or the cookery that have altered over the years. Despite really loving this place back then, I did not enjoy my dinner here at all in the slightest. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t tastyl. The food was too oily, bland, and lacked any omph.
My salmon starter had lots of small bones in it, and was oily. The boy disliked the vegetarian dish that the waiter strongly recommended he order over his original choice — again it was needlessly oily. Dad didn’t comment either way on his food.
The ambiance was a bit dead for my liking, but they did play midi versions of popular Hindi songs Woop.
Plus most seriously of all they tricked us with the After Eights. We thought they’d kindly given us an extra one and it was just an empty shell of a packet. The cruelty!
I’ve come out of Kiplings feeling distinctively unhealthy, and slimier that a Florida oil slick.

Overall, an excellent and authentic experience. despite initial concerns since the place was empty when we arrived, we sidled into the well appointed interior and were greeted cordially. Its a fairly grand looking place, and the service and food (except for the old ‘ask for meat samosas, and get served veggy ones’ chestnut) were consistent with the promise. I must admit that the enthusiastic spicing was a very pleasant surprise — when this place says ‘madras’, they mean it. later the place filled up and there was a nice relaxed buzz. I’d go again for sure.