Fiona MacLeod discovers why this Maiden Lane restaurant is one of the West End’s best-kept secrets
Fatt Pundit Covent Garden: The Indo-Chinese Gem Every London Visitor Should Know
There is a particular pleasure in discovering a restaurant that does something genuinely different in a part of London that could easily be dismissed as tourist territory. Fatt Pundit on Maiden Lane, tucked into the Covent Garden streets that most visitors walk past on their way to somewhere else, is exactly that discovery. It serves Indo-Chinese cuisine, a tradition born from the Chinese diaspora in Kolkata, and it serves it with the kind of focused intelligence that makes you want to book your next visit before you have finished the current one.
Indo-Chinese cooking is not fusion in the lazy sense, two cuisines thrown together in the hope that the collision produces something interesting. It is a genuine culinary tradition that developed over more than a century in the Chinese communities of eastern India, producing dishes that carry both influences fully and combine them into something entirely its own. The heat is Indian. The technique is Chinese. The flavour is neither and both simultaneously, and Fatt Pundit has built a menu around this with real conviction.
The Food
The chilli chicken here is the dish to start with. Crisp pieces of chicken tossed in a sauce that is simultaneously sweet, sour, and genuinely spicy, with enough complexity in the background to reward attention. It arrives looking unassuming and tastes extraordinary. The hakka noodles are equally accomplished, smoky from the wok, properly seasoned, the kind of dish that makes you wonder why you would order noodles anywhere else. The Manchurian cauliflower is a revelation for anyone who considers cauliflower a supporting player rather than a lead, sauced and spiced until it demands full attention.
The prawn dishes are a particular strength. The chilli garlic prawns balance heat with sweetness in a way that feels effortless, which is the mark of a kitchen that has been cooking this food for long enough that the ratios are in the muscle memory rather than being calculated fresh each service. The soups are deeply flavoured and properly thick, the kind of starter that sets you up well for what follows rather than filling you up before you get there.
The Room and the Service
The room is cosy in the best sense, not cramped but intimate, with a warmth to it that makes the meal feel like an occasion rather than a transaction. The staff are attentive without being hovering, the kind of service that appears when you need something and disappears when you want to focus on the food and the conversation. For a restaurant in this price range in this location, the service is genuinely impressive.
The menu is not enormous, which is a virtue. A focused menu means the kitchen is making everything rather than buying in the dishes that require specialist skills. Everything that arrives at the table feels considered and cared for, which is the evidence of a kitchen with standards and the discipline to maintain them.
For the London Visitor
If you are visiting London and you want to eat something you genuinely cannot eat elsewhere in the same form, Fatt Pundit is an excellent answer. Indo-Chinese cuisine is not widely available in the UK at this level of quality, and the Covent Garden location means it is convenient for most of the central London itinerary. Book in advance, particularly for weekends. The restaurant is not enormous and the word is clearly getting out. A visit to Fatt Pundit’s Covent Garden location is genuinely one of the more interesting dining experiences available in this part of the city.
For more London dining recommendations, The London Prat covers the city with the affection and irreverence it deserves. Bohiney Magazine has the wider cultural context.
