Talli Joe is an Indian restaurant in Covent Garden that claims to be best Indian restaurant in London. We love Indian food so we were tremendously excited to eat at Talli Joe. You can’t reserve a table of 2, so we rushed over soon as Shiima was done at work.

Talli Joe has a very contemporary casual vibe to it, you’d have no idea it’s actually an Indian restaurant from the décor of the place. We arrived at 6, and although seeming fairly empty, the restaurant was full booked. But thankfully we were sat at a high table just beside the door. Including being very accommodating with regard to a table, the service was really nice. They all seemed happy to help and happy to be there.

 

What we ordered

The menu had a lot of the Indian cuisine dishes we love, so we had to work to cut down our order. It does help that it’s mostly tapas style dishes.

We ordered Chicken 21, Kochi Beef Fry, Mong Dal Pakori, Bohri Chicken, Kohlapuri Chaap, Butter Chicken Papdi Chaat. Steamed Rice for Shiima, and Goan Pork Sausage Seekh kebab for me.

The Food

This is where I usually go into detail about the delights of each dish and luxuriate about how much we enjoyed it, but not at Talli Joe. We didn’t enjoy any of the dishes we ordered… it was all fair to middling, besides the steamed rice which was not good and fairly bland for basmati rice. I hated the kochi beef fry, and I very rarely hate “food”. I very rarely don’t finish my order either, but I just abandoned the beef fry after a couple mouthfuls.

Dessert?

No. We didn’t bother.

 

Verdict

We didn’t enjoy our dinner experience at Talli Joe. This could be because we had lofty expectations as the restaurant claimed to be the best Indian restaurant in London and had awards prominently on their website to back this up. But we really didn’t enjoy the food. It just didn’t taste good. But then Talli Joe seems to work for plenty others considering its awards. The service is also really good, and the setting, although nothing special, is rather pleasant. I can’t in good faith recommend Talli Joe, but do check the menu and if some dishes intrigue you do pay Talli Joe a visit because it’s certainly very fairly priced.

Cuisine: Indian
Dress Code: Casual
Price: £20-30 (excluding alcohol)
Rating: 2 out of 5

Talli Joe
152 – 156 Shaftesbury Avenue London,
United Kingdom, WC2H 8H
Walk in, or if more than 4 you can reserve a table through DesignMyNight