Carom at Meza

As we walked around Wardour Street near Carom we noticed many new restaurants and shops from Wahaca - somewhere we had previously frequented - to new cake shops, to gelato shops, to Imli, yet another Indian tapas-style restaurant. Wardour Street seems to have had a mini-revival and it’s somewhere we shall be visiting more often in future.

Carom hadn’t appeared on my radar until I read about it in The Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago.  It was suggested as being an up and coming relatively good value Indian restaurant in the middle of Soho.  Carom is housed in the former Mezzo restaurant owned by Sir Terence Conran’s group.

Carom is named after the Indian spice known as ajwain but is also an Indian game played at home or in cafes, and might best be described as the poor man’s snooker or billiards.  It consists of a small board with pockets on each corner and counters – like draughts pieces – are flicked using one’s fingers.  I’ve seen the game played in relatives’ homes in Calcutta but am still shaky about the rules.

I got a warm welcome from the reception staff but there was some inconsistency in statements from staff of kitchen opening hours. I was a little surprised that it wasn’t an all-day restaurant but closed after lunch until about 5pm. We sat on the comfortable sofas in the bar area with a drink until staff ushered us to a table for an early dinner. 


The decor is fairly simple with no real indication one is in an Indian restaurant apart from a few travel prints on the wall. The tables are mostly set up for two people – which perhaps suggests their target market – with some banquette tables against the wall. The lighting is very mellow with a number of candelabras.

As with many similar restaurants Carom has a set menu – Travellers at £10, and First Class at £15 – but we focused on the a la carte.  We were quite pleased to see numerous vegetarian dishes on the menu. Our starters were poppadoms and chilli squid – we have quite an addiction to these – with the addition of an Indian spice mix.  The mains were a Chennai Chicken Curry and a Keralan Prawn Curry.  The chicken curry was a little too spicy for Sue, but the prawn curry was mild.  With the rice, we had to order another portion, an Indian spiced salad, and a raita that was a complete and filling meal.

We thought the food to be of high quality and with a great deal of subtlety in the spicing.  The presentation had been well thought out and executed.  My only reservation was a relative lack of attentiveness in terms of service particularly as we had informed staff that we had a time constraint.  But that may be because we were the only diners for sometime.  In conclusion, we were highly impressed with the combination of the location, and the quality of the food when our bill was about £42 excluding drinks.  It comes close to fitting my description of the ideal Indian restaurant being a combination of Giftos (link here) in Southall, together with a Central London location, but without paying Tamarind or Benares prices.

www.caromsoho.com

100 Wardour Street

Soho

London W1F 0TN

020 7314 4002