At 13:00 every service day, Rajiv lights the charcoal. By 16:30 the clay wall is hot enough that a hand held a metre away feels it on the knuckles. That slow climb is the first ingredient in everything that leaves our grill.
Heat that seals
Gas gives you a flame. Charcoal gives you radiant heat from every side of a clay chamber, around 480 degrees Celsius at the wall. A chicken tikka meets that heat and sets its surface in seconds, which keeps the inside juicy while the edges blister.
Smoke you can taste
Fat falls onto the coals and comes back up as smoke. We never add liquid smoke or flavouring. The char on the lamb chops is the smoke of the lamb itself, plus a little hardwood charcoal sourced from a Kenyan supplier.
What it costs
Charcoal is slower to light, harder to control and dirtier to clean. It also means we cannot cook a tandoor order in ten minutes on a quiet Tuesday. We think the trade is fair, and we say so on the menu: grills take around 18 minutes.
If you want to see the fire, ask for a table near the pass. Evenings from Tuesday to Sunday.
Kitchen notes from Nuru Tandoor.
