Gurkha Chef

The curry was delicious and the service was unobtrusive and helpful. I’m coming back :)

This restaurant is not as good as I was expecting. Before I went I’d heard loads of great things from friends and work colleagues. Bur I found the place a little bit dull and void of atmosphere. However the menu had a big selection, of which I think I got lucky as I was the only person to particularly enjoy the food. It was a lamb dish of some description can’t remember exactly. Not terrible but I think there are plenty of better places to eat in Winchester.

The Gurka Chef in Winchester is a nice cosy restaurant but rather plain and a bit dull. The food ranges from either Nepalses or Himalayan food and is tastes roughly the same from each other. The only thing I can say is presentation of the food is good, service is good, but down side would be very pricey. The building is in a old style house decorated with their culture style decoration and the restaurant is close to the train station for easy access for people who live far away from Winchester.

This is not as interesting a restaurant as one might hope. Either Nepalese and Himalayan cuisine is a staid and bland cousin of its Indian counterparts or the chef has an uninspired interpretation of its traditions.
Like at least one other Gurkha restaurant in Winchester, the name is a an army reference to the base in town. It’s an understandable retirement plan for a Nepalese soldier serving far away from home. Unfortunately, what probably seemed wonderful cooking in the mess hasn’t translated seamlessly to the more demanding kitchen of a chef.
The menu choice is very wide, a weakness of most middling curry houses. There is the standard gamut of Indian classics tailored to the takeaway crowd and a surprisingly large selection of chef specialities. My unmemorable encounter with one of these (I forget which) was disappointing. My girlfriend had a lot more luck with a sizzling clay oven cooked chop of lamb.
This is not a bad restaurant, if it were a little cheaper I would give it three stars. As a takeaway it will probably serve you quite adequately. It’s quite possibly even the best in Winchester.