Indian Zing

Indian Zing sits on a King Street stretch better known for chains, and chef-proprietor Manoj Vasaikar’s cooking makes clear why this one has repeatedly ranked among London’s best Indian restaurants since 2004.

Vasaikar came up through Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy before opening his own room, and the pedigree shows in the way the menu is put together: this is not a laminated all-purpose curry-house list, but a considered, regionally-aware menu from someone who has cooked at the sharper end of London’s Indian dining scene and knows exactly what that end looks like.

The Room

A comfortable, unshowy dining room that puts the attention squarely on the plate rather than on itself. The décor is contemporary without straining for effect — warm lighting, a handful of decorative touches that nod to India without leaning on cliché, and enough space between tables that a conversation doesn’t have to compete with the next one over.

It’s the kind of room that photographs modestly and eats extremely well, which is precisely the trade-off you want on a street where several of the neighbours have made the opposite bargain. Service is attentive without hovering, and the pacing between courses suggests a kitchen confident enough not to rush a table that’s clearly enjoying itself.

What to Order

The duck Chettinad is the dish most regulars lead with, a dark, pepper-heavy South Indian preparation that most London Indian menus don’t attempt because it doesn’t forgive a lazy spice grind — here it’s balanced rather than simply hot, with the duck cooked long enough to fall apart under a fork.

The lobster balchão with Goan jaggery follows a similar logic: a pickled, vinegared Goan preparation, sharpened with chilli and rounded off by the jaggery’s sweetness, that most kitchens would either dumb down or skip entirely.

The chicken jalfrezi, by contrast, is the concession to familiarity — but even here it’s cooked with real technique rather than assembled from a jarred base, and it’s worth ordering precisely to see the gap between Indian Zing’s version and the one you’ve had everywhere else.

The Drinks List

A considered wine list built to work alongside spice rather than get flattened by it — a handful of aromatic whites and low-tannin reds chosen with genuine thought about what survives a Chettinad-level pepper hit. There’s also a full cocktail list for anyone who’d rather start the evening that way, and a short but sensible beer selection for the traditionalists at the table.

What You Will Pay

Around £45–65 per person à la carte with a glass of wine, which is a fair reflection of the kitchen’s ambition rather than an inflated King Street tourist tax. The set lunch is a genuine bargain by comparison, at £17–20 for two or three courses — the same kitchen, scaled down in price rather than in care, and the smartest way to try the room before committing to a full evening.

The Verdict

The set lunch is the easiest way in — the à la carte dinner is worth the fuller spend once you’re convinced, and most people who try the lunch menu end up booking the dinner within a few weeks.

Either way, order at least one dish you wouldn’t find on a generic curry-house menu; that’s where the kitchen’s real ambition shows itself, and it’s a useful test of whether a table is ready to trust the chef’s regional choices over the safer, more familiar options further down the page.

What’s Being Said

A serious Indian kitchen sitting among King Street’s chains, doing enough to make the walk past them worthwhile. What’s easy to miss from the street is how deliberately regional the menu is — this isn’t a “best of India” survey course, it’s a chef cooking specific dishes from specific places with real conviction, which is a rarer thing on this stretch of Hammersmith than the storefronts around it would suggest.

That specificity is exactly what this review’s rating is meant to reward — regional conviction over a broader, safer survey of Indian cooking.