Since Ravinder Bhogal and Nadeem Lalani Nanjuwany opened Marylebone’s Jikoni in 2016 it has been celebrated for clever, creative cooking that flits borders and reflects London’s multitudes of cultures and cuisines. Now, the husband-and-wife duo have announced they’ll open a new restaurant: Karam’s, a South Asian vegetarian diner in Bloomsbury’s brutalist Brunswick Centre. Next year will be a watershed year for the pair; along with Karam’s they will open a restaurant in the new V&A East, in spring.
Karam’s will be a tribute to Bhogal and Nanjuwany’s Indian ancestors, and the recipes that have been passed down between generations of women in their families. It’ll be more casual than Jikoni – and entirely vegetarian.
“I inherited my knack for cooking vibrant, South Asian food – that didn’t rely on the safety blankets of meat and fish – from my long lineage of plant-eating maternal ancestors, many of whom remained in agile health well into their ninth or tenth decades,” Bhogal tells Broadsheet. “They taught me to celebrate the vegetable kingdom with engaging dishes that had impeccable balance and textural contrast, that were miles away from the dour school of vegetable cookery that many people in the west grew up with.”
Like Jikoni, Karam’s will be grounded in nourishing, quality ingredients. It’ll feature thalis balancing savoury, sweet, spicy, sour and pungent flavours, and dishes featuring heritage grains and craft breads, prepared in an open kitchen in a space inspired by langar halls – communal dining spaces in Gurdwaras (Sikh places of worship).
“I am especially excited about some of the breakfast options like our panki – a sort of savoury pancake cooked in banana leaves – or a lunch or dinner bowl of dhal dhokli, a sweet and sour dhal with handmade chickpea flour pasta cooked in it: a remembrance of home to make us feel safe when the world feels like a wilderness,” says Bhogal.
The restaurant is named after Bhogal’s grandfather, Sardar Karam Singh Bhogal, who relocated from Panjab to East Africa in the 1940s and had deep connections to the land. He has heavily influenced Bhogal and Nanjuwany’s sense of enacting community service through food and hospitality. It’s an approach that has seen Jikoni go entirely carbon neutral, and this ethos will continue to flow through Karam’s. “We are committed to using our entire business and purchasing power positively – sourcing produce from growers who nurture their land and farm in balance with nature and climate,” said Nanjuwany in a statement.
“Karam’s is an effort to preserve the food and flavours that connects me to these incredible women, the techniques and traditions they passed down to me that are sometimes so nuanced, that they are impossible to capture in just words,” says Bhogal of the maternal lineage that roots the venue. “We want our guests to benefit from the wholesome, healing and nurturing spirit of these dishes that were always cooked with the intention to make those eating them feel loved and well.”
Karam’s will open in the second quarter of 2026.
