Shilpa Indian Restaurant

okay food; low prices; you get what you pay for; quick service. I had the Kerala fish curry; curry was okay; but fish still had that fishy smell.

Ordered delivery based on the great Time Out reviews I saw recently. The reviews must have been fabricated or something because what I ordered was FAR from great indian food. Both chicken curries I ordered were bland and watery and the masala dosa I ordered was soggy, the whole meal was underwhelming. I was excited to order because i’m an indian food fanatic and I’m still on a legendary search for the best indian takeaway in london /​around my area.
Regarding takeaway places, I’ve tried:
Curry Leaves
Varanasi Chefs
Pimlico Spice
Lahore Grill
Balti Spice Fusion
Shezan
Haandi
Zaf Barqat
Masala Zone
Masala Express
NONE have made me keep wanting more! HOW is there no good indian takeaways?!

Definitely my favourite Indian restaurant in London. Really good service and delicious food!

We came here for dinner last week, after having heard good reviews. But were still positively surprised by both the food and the service at this unassuming place, which specialises in Southern Indian (particularly Keralan) cuisine.
We had popadoms for nibbles, which I would probably skip the next time. Not that it was bad, but more because you want to save space for all the other goodies later on.
For starters we enjoyed deep fried lamb cubes in delicious spices, crispy on the outside and super tender on the inside. We also had the grilled kingfish steaks, which were nicely spiced (and on the spicy side), although a tad over. Spicy Cauliflower is also recommended!
The mains were absolute winners; prawns were plump and juicy in a tangy tomato sauce and the fish moilee was light, creamy, fruity and spicy. Was good to see plenty of fresh curry leafs in the sauce too. SO good! Rice, naan etc were excellent too.
The bill was very reasonable too.

Order the masala dosas! We come here regularly for them. In fact we always stick to the Kerala dishes and we’ve never had a bad dish here. Plus great value for money.

Very good dosas… A must visit. Their sambhar is way better than the sagar down the road. I wish they were open the entire afternoon.

This was a great find! We were delighted to learn that they serve food until midnight. Our meal was flavorful and a great value. I had the fish tikka masala, lemon rice and plain naan with a bottle of very reasonably priced chenin blanc. The service was respectful and attentive.

Don’t bother! Just left after waiting nearly 50 minutes for our food to arrive. When I asked if it would be much longer I was told that it was delayed because of take away orders which were taking priority. Paid for our warm beers and left in search of a better place to eat. Never ever going back.

YES! We have tried various restaurants in the low to mid price range in and around London and we find Shilpa to be a great value. We were extremely pleased with the Kozhi Kutumulaga Masala chicken (5 stars), the chicken tikka masala (4 – 5 stars), the Bhindi Masala (4 stars), the Fish Moilee (3 stars), Tadka Wali Dhal (3 stars), the Masala Dosa (3 – 4 stars), garlic chilly naan (4 – 5 stars). For southern Indian, we compare Shilpa to Dosas (San Francisco, 5 stars) and because its chutneys and sambar, Shilpas is good but not as complex as Dosas SF. So we’ll go out of our way to Shilpa compared to nearby south Asian restaurants that dot so many high streets nearby.

Pleased to see they serve Appam here, reminding me of a great trip to India several years back.
Serving Appam in London is rare, and a great mark of south Indian authenticity.

I love the food at Shilpa. I have eaten at the restaurant once, where they were very polite and attentive and ordered take-​away several times, which is always quick and delicious! Love them.

So one of our goals was to find some good indian food. Last time we were a bit constrained, but this time we were determined.
Mint Leaf was interesting… pricey… very tastey…
Shilpa was something where we had seen something about a review about it. .but happened across it as we were walking looking for something for easter dinner of all meals.
That being said… what a great find…
The dosa was HUGE… the garlic naan was very tastey and a good portion. They made butter chicken for me and it was probably the best I’ve ever had.
The service was good… maybe a little slow at the end, but the people were polite, mostly timely, patient with us, and the prices were very reasonable.
This was early in our trip… and really allowed us to set that accomplishment aside.
thanks!!!

Indian food is my Achilles heel. This is one of the worst indian takeaway meals I have ever received.
My friends and I spent the first 10 minutes staring at the 6 tubs of cold slop that had arrived late from the Hammersmith location, trying to work out what they were.
We ended up binning the meal. Avoid.

Delicious food at sensible prices. The service is excellent and the food is almost as good as home cooked fare.
The appams are soft and fluffy and the Fish Moilee is Delish! Love the desserts too.
So happy that this is my local.

I have eaten hundreds of Indian Curries at numerous establishments over many years, and I can honestly say that this is THE BEST INDIAN MEAL THAT I HAVE EVER EATEN! Fact!
It was a wet Sunday night, and I had parked up in Hammersmith ready to go to a gig at The Apollo.
I had walked past many time, and had my eye on this particular restaurant on many occasions. I had 2 hours to kill, so i decided to go for a full sit-​down meal, m and was eager with anticipation. After having driven for 3 hours to get London, i needed to go to the WC, so asked for a table and promptly where the bathroom was. The waiter was very cheery and showed me with no hesitation. I liked that. It was 6pm and i was first in the place. I smiled at whom I believed to be the owner (maybe the waiter’s father), and he seemed pleasant. It’s all about making an impression, I thought! Once rested and seated I proceeded to order a sweet lassi for my drink, which was delicious, and much needed after a long drive! I studied the menu with great enthusiasm. I knew this was a KERALA CUISINE resuatarant, not just your basic bog standard Indian (i.e. no tikka masala on the menu!) Kerala are dishes from south west India, they are ostensibly fish based or vegetarian, although the meny doies cater for meat eaters as well. I felt the need to order some poppodums, but the accompaniments they came were refershingly different, coconut, beetroot, and coriander chutney. For appetiser I had the Rasam soup, which was hot & sour soup with lentils and tomato. iIhad indicated to the waiter that I wanted my food spicy, and boy was this spicy, with a ruddy great chili pepper in the bottom, but it was just the most delicious soup i’ve ever tasted!
I am a meat eater, and i especially love shellfish, but on this occasion in decided to go totally vegetarian to embrace what was a brlliant menu, and to respect the menu itself. Besides, the prices favoured the vegetarian stuf, in a lot of cases it was a fiver cheaper per dish!
For my starters, there were so many tasty looking dishes that I couldn’t decide, so i went for two. Onion Pakoda, which was Bengal gram flour, onion, ginger, green chilly and curry leaf made in to dough and then deep fried. Served with coriander chutney. And Potato Bonda, being mashed potato tempered with chilly, curry leaf and ginger and deep fried. Served with coconut chutney. They were both out of this world and made a welcome change to somosa or onion bhaji!
I was starting to get a bit stuffed now, what with haviing my second sweet lassi as well!
For my main dish, I crassly asked the wiater for very hot curry sauce as it wasn’t on the menu, I know I’m a heathen but i love it and i wanted it!
To accompnay my ‘curry sauce’ was Aloo Mutter which was potato, peas in a cashew (curry) gravy, and good old Bombay Potato, which was baby potato cooked with onion tomato masala and tempered with cumin. To accompnay my mains, I;m a sucker soa good bread, and good they certably were, i had 3 diff sorts — Appam (soft centred lacy pancake with a crispy border, pre-​fermented with yeast and coconut milk cooked in special pan). Keral Paratha — layered soft & flaky bread made from plain flour and cooked on a griddle. Melt in the mouth or what! Finally, I had Poori, two pieces of deep fried, puffed wheat flour bread. to mop up all those lovely juices, spices and sauces. Well to be honest, the got delivered to my table, but I respectively said please put them and my remaining food into take– away containers. I was beating, but i wanted to repeat the experience the following night in the comfort of my own home! The meal came to £30, and absolutley bargain, for effetively 10 dishes and 2 drinks, you won’t get that very often in London!
And, by me sitting in the window table the restaurant got very busy that night, I like to think I had something to do with that, the owner decerved it and the people deserved that pleasurable experience also! Oh, and my concert was great as well!

Southern Indian is my new adventure… Kingfish curries, Dosas and spicy Rasams. I’ve never been to the fiery tip of the subcontinent but I’m going to do my very best at recreating a culinary vacation by sampling London’s best. From trustworthy sources… Shilpa is one if these.
For 15 pounds I treated myself to a mini-​banquet for one — a glass of house red, a generous bowl of rasam, a plate of plump lemon rice and a spiced-​up raw mango and fish curry with a name so long and complicated that it should be published in Science magazine.
With my banquet in place I busied myself staining the white linen linen tablecloth while checking out some DesiPop music videos with gorgeous young Indians partying in Miami for some reason. It was a great final meal of ’09 even if it was by myself.
Shilpa gives me an affordable flight to my new South Indian adventure. They compare well to other versions of this cuisine I’ve tried before, but not enough just yet to bring out the dark red stars. Maybe after my 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th or perhaps 12^th return visit.

I have walked past this restaurant a million times without giving it a second glance but last night having tired of my local indian and it’s erratic service I decided to give it a whirl… a very very very good thing indeed.
We walked to what looked like a family party that took up most of the restaurant and the atmosphere was lovely, buzzy but not over boisterous with age groups varying from 3mths to 80 years old. The ladies were all beautifully dressed in the most amazing Sari’s and I was dying to get in on the act but sat in quiet wonderment at how lovely it all was… the waiter arrived with menus and a welcome Cobra and we took ages ordering as everything on the menu felt very new and fresh to the normal indian offering. The menu is entirely Keralese, clearly very different from you’re average Vindaloo, Bhuna, Tandoor offering.
We started with Grilled Sea Scallops which were soft and perfectly cooked discs of queen scallops served with bits of crunchy ginger and garlic and excellently seasoned, we had also ordered deep fried lamp which was very good indeed in that it was not tough and well flavoured but it came with the same crunchy garlic and ginger garnish… down to our bad ordering rather than the restaurant.
Next came what I think is probably the best, most amazing indian dish I have ever had, Konju Masala, King Prawns cooked in a thick sauce with ginger an onion and curry leaves… ohmygod, this sauce had clearly been left to cook for a very long time and was just oozing with flavour, the caramelised onions and ginger soft and sweet the big, fresh as a daisy King prawns firm yet sweet and savoury all at the same time… I asked for it to be slightly hotter than it would normally be served (am a true chilli head) and it was perfect… we also ordered another lamb dish (I didn’t do this bit of the ordering and the person that did loves his lamb) it was nice but again I feel another dish would have complimented the prawns far more we had loads of side orders which were all excllent… including a Masala Dosa which is a huge crispy pancake stuffed with potato and served with a special sauce… very nice indeed it was too. Given that we had booked through top table we had a 40% discount off the food and the fact that we drank our body weight in cobra still didn’t get the bill over 40 pounds which considering the sheer amount we had eaten is incredible.
I had a long chat with owner who is the most charming man. The service was brillaint, the atomosphere lovely and food outstanding. Hurry down there… it’s a little slice of heaven in Hammersmith.

Pretty good south indian food in this new restaurant. I would be going back again

Although not really big on atmosphere or ambience the Shilpa Indian Restaurant provides delicious south indian cuisine at a very attractive price. Great food, great service and great value. Will certainly go back there.

The mission to discover the best delivered Indian food continues. We tried Shilpa out the other week and it was alright.
I put the order in online and it all went through alright but then I got a phone call telling me one of the dishes I’d ordered was not available and would I change it to something else. That was a bit of a shame but we ended up having a chicken tikka and a chicken tikka masala.
Free poppadoms and mint yogurt was a nice touch. It tasted pretty good. Prices were around a fiver a dish, so reasonable.
What was quite weird was when it was delivered, the man phoned me and asked me to come and collect from his car. Bit lazy.