The Hottest Ticket in London Is Asma Khan’s Biryani Supper Club

A supper club is generally an intimate affair, with a select group of diners sharing a unique gastronomic experience in a discreet, private space. At least that’s true in my native India. I’m thinking specifically of a place like Bohri Kitchen in Mumbai, where eight guests crowd around a table in Nafisa Kapadia’s downtown apartment, feasting on dish after delicious lamb dish from her tiny kitchen.

So there was some cognitive dissonance upon arrival at chef Asma Khan’s biryani supper club at a recent Sunday lunchtime in London. There is nothing intimate about her celebrated Darjeerling Express restaurant in the hyper-touristy Covent Garden shopping district, where the Royal Thali menu might include chili-crusted prawns and spiced mutton kebabs. The airy dining room seats 80 with plenty of elbow room—so large, in fact, that few diners noticed the celebrity in their midst. Paul “Ant-Man” Rudd, a regular at the restaurant, was here for his first biryani. Like the rest of us, he had to wait his turn: Tickets for the weekly lunch, at £95 ($130) a pop, must be booked far in advance.