When Karan Gokani was conceiving Hoppers number four, which opened in Shoreditch on February 4, he decided to place the focus on the regional cuisines of south India. Gokani, who co-founded the first Hoppers in Soho in 2015, has been instrumental in nurturing Londoners’ appreciation of Sri Lankan food. He hopes to do the same at the new restaurant, which has taken over the space that housed James Lowe’s beloved fine diner Lyle’s until its closure last year.
“What we try and do is evolve each time and really focus on a different region,” Gokani says. “South India has always been a big part of our story – it’s just not been covered as much.
Gokani and his team – including group executive chef Renjith Sarathchandran and Shoreditch’s head chef Dasun Kavinda Kumarage – embarked on intense R&D across the region’s culinary capitals, including Chennai, Chettinad, Madurai and Bengaluru. The result is a menu of some of the region’s key dishes, reframed and developed through a Hoppers lens. (Some Sri Lankan staples, like its namesake hoppers and mutton rolls remain.)
There’s a Dindigul-style short-rib biryani that’s inspired by a dish eaten at Thalappakatti, a restaurant group famous for its biryani, in Chennai. It showcases south Indian short grain rice rather than the more familiar version made with basmati. Another dish – in which paneer or lamb is roasted with masala and stuffed inside the dosa – pairs Bengaluru’s benne dosa with ghee roast from the coastal city of Mangaluru.
“India is having a moment with benne dosa, which is a thicker dosa, slightly sweeter, fried, almost fried in butter,” Gokani says. “And then there was another dish called ghee roast, which is the great dish from Mangalore. And I was like, actually, we should bring them together.
“It’s to show people that a dosa is not just a dosa. There are nuances. India is a big country. And as you travel, there are differences.”
But the dish that perhaps best exemplifies Hoppers’s culinary ethos is a new crab kari omelette, with an intense brown meat gravy and a nool paratha (a flaky, many-layered version of the bread).
“It’s a combination of about four dishes, but it just works so well,” Gokani says. “And weirdly, it’s like a kottu roti, which has been our classic at Hoppers. It is the perfect dish to describe the journey that we’ve had in the last 10 years.”
The restaurant accommodates 55 and has a fit-out by London design studio Atelier Wren (Caia, Silva) that completely reimagines the space into something more transportive than its previous sun-soaked, light-timbered incarnation as Lyle’s. Shutters filter the daylight, creating a brooding space evocative of old Chettiar family homes. The craft traditions of India’s Tamil Nadu state are referenced throughout, bringing together patterned tiles and carved timber details, including a jaw-dropping ceiling, tabletops sourced from India and decorative masks that arrived moments before the restaurant hosted its first trial services.
The bar is likely to be a draw in its own right, with a programme overseen by group operations manager Martin Balo and group bars manager Ioan Marcu.
“Instead of looking at what classic drinks to put on the menu, it started more with what the drinking culture is in south India, from the morning chai, the South Indian super strong black coffee, to the afternoon rose milk,” Marcu says.
Alongside cocktails like the Young Monk – a take on rum and cola with chai – and Rose & Milk Punch, which reference those traditions, Marcu also developed a riff on an Old Fashioned that spotlights Amrut, Bengaluru’s homegrown single malt whisky. Drinks like arrack and toddy are well represented, and there’s a raft of mini-cocktails and strong non-alcoholic options.
“Shoreditch 100 per cent feels like a full circle moment,” Gokani says. “I don’t like to use the word ‘authentic,’ because it’s a nothing word. I don’t know what it means. But instead, integrity is the key to what we do at Hoppers.”
Hoppers Shoreditch
Tea Building, 56 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6JJ
Hours:
Mon to Wed midday–3pm, 5.30pm–10.45pm
Thu & Fri midday–3pm, 5.30pm–11pm
Sat midday–11pm
Sun midday–9.30pm
