A Pakistani grill house is not an Indian restaurant with different flags outside. There is usually no wine list, no three-course structure and no long list of named curries. There is a charcoal grill, a tandoor, and karahi dishes cooked to order in the pan they arrive in, often priced by weight rather than by portion. Order lamb chops, a mutton karahi and bread, and you have ordered correctly.
The food is at its best in Southall, Tooting, Whitechapel and along Ilford Lane, and a proper meal for two runs £25 to £40. Our guide to Brick Lane and the British curry house covers the grill houses around Whitechapel Road and the trade they grew out of; our page on Indian food in London covers the regional map on the other side of the border. This page is about how to walk into a Pakistani grill house and order like someone who has been before.
Pakistani food: the short version
- Order first
- Lamb chops from the charcoal, mutton karahi, a tandoori naan, and a mint raita.
- Typical dish
- £10 to £18, and karahi often priced per half-kilo or kilo (our estimate, September 2026).
- Breakfast dish
- Nihari, slow-cooked shin in a dark spiced gravy. Traditionally eaten in the morning.
- Alcohol
- Most grill houses are unlicensed. Several allow you to bring your own; ask first.
- Hours
- Later than almost anything else in London. Many serve until midnight or beyond.
- Where
- Southall Broadway; Tooting High Street; Fieldgate Street and New Road, Whitechapel; Ilford Lane.
Six ways a Pakistani grill house is different
The grill is visible and it is charcoal. Lamb chops, seekh kebabs, tikka boti and chicken go over live coals, not under a gas salamander. If you cannot see or smell the grill, you are in a curry house.
Karahi is cooked to order, in the pan. A karahi is a wide steel wok. Meat, tomato, ginger, green chilli and very little else go in, and the dish arrives in the same pan, still bubbling. There is no pre-made base sauce, which is why it takes twenty-five minutes and why it tastes of the meat.
Portions are by weight. Karahi is frequently priced per half-kilo or kilo rather than per person, which confuses first-timers. Half a kilo is generous for two people with bread. Ask what the price covers before you order two.
There is no starter-and-main structure. Everything arrives as it is ready and is shared. Order the grill first, the karahi second, and bread continuously.
Most are unlicensed. Many will let you bring your own bottle, sometimes without charge. This is not universal, so ask before arriving with wine.
They are open late and busy at eleven. A Pakistani grill house in Tooting or Ilford at half past eleven on a Saturday is full of families. Our page on restaurants that do not take bookings covers the queueing that follows.
Order bread by the piece, all the way through the meal. Naan and roti come out of the tandoor in two or three minutes and are meant to be eaten hot. Two people will get through four or five, ordered in pairs as you go, rather than a stack at the start that goes leathery.
What to order, in the right order
From the grill: lamb chops, marinated and charred until the fat crisps, which are the single most ordered thing in these restaurants and the benchmark; seekh kebab, minced lamb moulded on a skewer; tikka boti, cubes of marinated lamb; and chapli kebab, the flat, wide, coriander-and-tomato-heavy Peshawari patty, if a Pathan kitchen has it.
From the karahi: mutton karahi is the standard order - meat on the bone, tomato, ginger, green chilli, finished with coriander. Chicken karahi is milder. Charsi karahi is the Peshawari version, made with very little but meat, tomato and animal fat, and it is a different dish.
Nihari. Beef or mutton shin and marrow cooked overnight in a gravy thickened with wheat flour, until the meat collapses. Traditionally a breakfast dish, eaten with naan, and finished at the table with julienned ginger, green chilli, fresh coriander and a squeeze of lime, plus a spoon of nihari masala if it is offered. If you order one thing that is not from the grill, order this.
Haleem - wheat, lentils and shredded meat pounded into a thick porridge, garnished the same way as nihari. Paya - trotters, gelatinous, an acquired pleasure. Biryani - the Karachi style includes a potato, and it is not a mistake.
Breakfast: halwa puri, a plate of semolina halwa, chickpea curry and puffed fried bread, eaten at the weekend and finished by noon. It is the Pakistani equivalent of the long weekend breakfast covered on our page about the Turkish breakfast.
To drink: doodh patti, tea boiled in milk rather than water, strong and sweet; lassi, salted or sweet; and Kashmiri chai, the pink tea made with green tea leaves and bicarbonate of soda, topped with crushed pistachio, served at the end of a big meal.
Southall: the Broadway grills
Southall is usually described as Punjabi and Sikh, which it mostly is, and our Southall guide covers The Broadway properly. The Pakistani Punjabi end of it is the charcoal: Butt Karahi at 157 The Broadway was rated 5 at its inspection in January 2026, which is the best-rated Pakistani restaurant in any of the main clusters.
The Elizabeth line runs to Southall from Paddington in thirteen minutes, and the journey sits inside a Zones 1-4 daily cap, so an afternoon out here often costs nothing extra in fares.
Tooting: two restaurants, one road
Tooting High Street and Upper Tooting Road hold Sri Lankan, south Indian and Pakistani kitchens along the same mile, which our Tooting guide covers. For the Pakistani end:
| Place | Address | Rating | Inspected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lahore Karahi | 1 Tooting High Street SW17 | 5 | 13 April 2026 |
| Mirch Masala | 213 Upper Tooting Road SW17 | 3 | 21 August 2025 |
Both are large, loud, unlicensed rooms with open kitchens, and both serve late. The one at the top of the high street had the better rating when we checked, and it is two minutes from Tooting Broadway station on the Northern line.
Whitechapel, Ilford and the rest
| Place | Address | Rating | Inspected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tayyabs | 83-89 Fieldgate Street E1 | 5 | 18 February 2026 |
| Lahore Kebab House | 2-4 Umberston Street E1 | 4 | 26 November 2025 |
| Needoo | 87 New Road E1 | 3 | 27 July 2026 |
| Shezan | 130 Ilford Lane IG1 | 5 | 3 February 2026 |
| MI CHAII | 125 Ilford Lane IG1 | 5 | 19 May 2026 |
| Tayyabs Express | 143 High Street, Barkingside IG6 | 5 | 25 September 2025 |
| Nihari Junction | 34 Spring Street W2 | 5 | 10 July 2025 |
| Karachi Cafe | 63 Cricklewood Broadway NW2 | 5 | 9 May 2025 |
| Royal Karahi | 350-352 High Road, Wembley HA9 | 4 | 3 December 2025 |
| Old Karachi Biryani Corner | 59 Plashet Grove, East Ham E6 | 4 | 20 November 2025 |
Two of those are worth singling out for reasons other than the food. The one on Spring Street is two minutes from Paddington station and is the only place in this guide where you can eat nihari without leaving Zone 1; it was rated 5 in July 2025. And the tea house on Ilford Lane is a different format altogether - a chai house rather than a grill, open late, aimed at people who want doodh patti and a plate of something at eleven at night. Our Ilford guide covers that road, which is one of the longest unbroken South Asian high streets in London.
Check the rating for the branch, not the name. Several of these businesses have more than one address and the inspections are separate: one branch of a well-known grill house was rated 5 and another rated 3 when we searched the register in September 2026. We name nothing rated below 3 anywhere on this site.
The regional differences worth knowing
Punjabi Pakistani cooking - Lahore and its surroundings - is the default in London: charcoal grills, karahi, rich gravies, wheat bread. Sindhi and Karachi cooking brings the biryani with the potato, more fish and more heat. Pathan or Peshawari kitchens from the north-west do the opposite of what people expect: namkeen gosht is lamb cooked with salt, tomato and fat and almost no spice at all, and charsi karahi follows the same logic. Kashmiri cooking supplies the pink tea and the heavy use of fennel and dried ginger.
Afghan food sits immediately beyond that border and is a separate tradition with its own dumplings and rice; our page on Afghan food in London covers it. On the other side, Bangladeshi food is fish-led and sour, and Goan and Keralan cooking is coconut and coastal. None of the four is interchangeable with the others.
What it costs, and how to keep it sensible
Our estimate from menus read in September 2026: lamb chops £8 to £14 for four, seekh kebab £5 to £9, karahi £14 to £24 for a shared pan or per half-kilo, nihari £9 to £14, naan £1.50 to £3.50, lassi £3 to £5. Two people ordering a grill plate, one karahi and four breads should land between £30 and £42 before any tip, and can eat well for £25 if they skip the grill.
Three ways it goes wrong. Ordering one karahi each, when one between two is plenty. Ordering rice as well as bread, when you need one or the other. And ordering a mixed grill for one, which in these restaurants is built for three. Our guide to cheap eats in London has the wider budget picture.
On halal: effectively all of these kitchens serve halal meat, and many display a certificate. What that certificate does and does not guarantee under British law is set out on our page about halal food in London. During Ramadan the hours invert completely: nothing served in daylight, then a full house from sunset until the small hours, and the grill houses around Whitechapel are the best place in London to see it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Pakistani and Indian food in London?
A Pakistani restaurant is usually a grill house: charcoal-cooked lamb chops and kebabs, karahi dishes cooked to order in the pan and often sold by weight, bread from a tandoor, no alcohol licence, and no starter-and-main structure. A British Indian restaurant serves a fixed list of named curries built on a prepared base sauce, with a heat scale and a wine list.
What is nihari and when should I eat it?
Beef or mutton shin and marrow cooked overnight into a dark, thick gravy, traditionally eaten for breakfast with naan. At the table you add julienned ginger, green chilli, coriander and lime, and a spoonful of nihari masala if it is offered. Many London restaurants serve it all day, but a weekend morning is when it is freshest.
Where is the best Pakistani food in London?
Southall Broadway, Tooting High Street, the streets around Whitechapel Road, and Ilford Lane. Of the restaurants we checked in September 2026 the highest-rated in each cluster were on The Broadway in Southall, Tooting High Street, Fieldgate Street in Whitechapel and Ilford Lane, all rated 5.
Can I bring my own wine to a Pakistani restaurant?
Often, but not always. Many of these restaurants are unlicensed and permit you to bring your own bottle, sometimes free of charge and sometimes for corkage. A few do not allow alcohol on the premises at all. Ask when you book or telephone ahead rather than arriving with a bottle and hoping.
How much is a karahi and how many people does it feed?
Karahi is frequently priced by weight rather than per person, commonly per half-kilo or kilo, and one half-kilo pan with four breads is a full meal for two people. Expect £14 to £24 for a shared pan. Ask what the listed price covers before you order one each, which is the most common way of over-ordering here.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency - food hygiene ratings register, every business named on this page, searched by name and by address (checked September 2026)
- GOV.UK - the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme and what each rating means (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - the Elizabeth line, for journeys to Southall (checked September 2026)
- Office for National Statistics - Ethnic group, England and Wales, Census 2021 (checked September 2026)