Welcome to Paradise

Paradise is cramped but clean and the service is attentive and very friendly.

10 April 2012

It was inevitable that the posh incomers to Westbourne Grove would squeeze out the old-established and old-fashioned businesses, and that the stretch between numbers 100 and 170 would be a tempting target - particularly as the high and low numbers have already had their makeover.

So, at 139, the Mandola - a sprawling, laid-back Sudanese restaurant - is no more. At 163-165, Guesthouse West offers ultra-chic B&B to stylistas. Alastair Little's food shop, Tavola, has arrived at 155. At 157 the Star Of Bombay clings on with a very similar look and menu to the one that it offered decades ago and at 149, Paradise, a Sri Lankan restaurant, opened during 2004.

This is the kind of new business for which you feel an instant pang of sympathy. The Grove is now a slick street, but this is obviously an old-fashioned small family business with fewer than 40 seats, cheap prices and
home-style food. The proprietors have probably done some sort of deal with a coffee company as the awnings outside offer cappuccinos and espressos.

Inside it is cramped but clean and the service is attentive and very friendly. The menu combines several South Indian dishes with an array of Sri Lankan specialities and, as a general guide to ordering, the best dishes are the home-made curries. Prices are cheap - you can order most curries without straying far over £5.

The starters are variable: fish cutlets - described as 'tuna fish mixed with potatoes, onion and chillies then deep fried' - were a little light on tuna and chilli, but otherwise sound enough. Good crisp outer, fluffy spud interior - it is hard to grizzle about two large 'fish cakes' for £3. The veg bonda (fresh veg and mash) is also sound.

The mutton pepper fry - which turns out more like a main course - is very successful - mutton cooked in a pepper gravy that is reduced until only a dryish, highly flavoured sludge remains. This makes a good starter to share if you add one of the very good veechu parathas (large, thin, buttery bread).

For a main dish you could try the famous string hopper - an egg string hopper is dished up looking just like a grey-brown string vest that had been put through a mincer and then cooked with egg. Thankfully it tastes a great deal nicer. Even when you ask for it 'hot, Sri Lankan hot!'

A notoriously chilli-heavy dish like chicken Chettinad comes to table only chilli-tepid.

The Sri Lankan habit of impeccable manners does their cuisine a deep disservice, there seems no way to persuade the chef that you really do like hot food, and the staff are all determined to save you from making a mistake. So they dish it up mild. The squid curry is good. The mutton vartha is also good - the sort of plain, well-balanced mutton curry you might be offered by a South Indian family.

The peas pilau shows that frozen peas do have a place in good cooking. The poori is a large, deep fried, deeply self-indulgent bread that carries enough calories to kick any diet into touch.

You have to wonder whether those locals who have used the Star Of Bombay as their local curry house since time immemorial will be persuaded to try Paradise as an alternative. The Lion lager is certainly competitive, and the food is very reasonably priced. This is a family business worth supporting if only for the mutton vartha. And what's more, they serve coffee as well.

Paradise
149 Westbourne Grove, W11

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