Mowgli, Corn Street: 'Mowgli is for people who are scared of Indian food'
It has taken four years for the Mowgli team to open their 21st branch in Bristol and it was not worth the wait.
Maya Angelou said “at the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” I am reasonably confident she wasn’t talking about restaurants, but her quote is very applicable nonetheless.
I remember my first visit to Mowgli’s second branch in Manchester nearly a decade ago very fondly. I felt as though I’d spent an hour or two right at the heart of hospitality.
In 2019, Mowgli announced they were opening in Bristol. In the intervening years, they’d expanded all over the country.
Their Corn Street branch finally opened a few weeks ago. Many have pondered what has caused the four year delays since then.
Perhaps it was the challenge of renovating a Grade II listed building, delicately stripping it of its previous Pizza Express interior. I imagine it must have taken a while to scrape all the garlic butter out of the crevices in the tiles.
Or perhaps it was that owner Nisha Katona was struggling to find the time amidst being a successful entrepreneur, Chancellor of a university, owner of twenty other restaurants, a TV personality and food writer.
The pandemic probably also didn’t help matters.
Upon stepping through the doors, the mystery is instantly solved. It must have taken them four years just to source and install all those fairy lights. God help them when they have to start changing the bulbs.
Mowgli’s strap-line is that it ‘was built to bring the way Indians eat at home to our streets’. I wasn’t aware that Indians all had swings in their homes but it certainly makes me more excited to visit when I get the chance.
Once you look past the fairy lights, the overriding theme is that Mowgli is now for people who are scared of authentic Indian food. If you were being kind, you could call it entry-level fusion cuisine.
House lamb curry (£9.50) and Mowgli puri (£3.95) are not going to go down in the history books but were perfectly enjoyable. Pani puri, appropriated into chat bombs (£6) for the Mowgli menu, stand out in my memory from my first visit nine years ago and now I remember why. They’re a well crafted eruption of cold yoghurt, sweet tamarind and earthy chickpeas.
Treacle tamarind fries (£6.95) were sadly more two dimensional than Flat Stanley. My main problem is that they’re not fries. They’re cubes of potato, not remotely crisp and far too sweet. They should be moved to the dessert menu or better still, erased entirely.
Guy Fawkes would struggle to contain his disappointment at Mowgli’s gunpowder chicken (£7.95). How things have changed in 400 years. We have learnt how to fry chicken and then seemingly forgotten again. The desire to blow up parliament remains, but this chicken wouldn’t incite a bead of sweat, much less an explosion.
Temple dahl (£5.50) is the equivalent of Jungle Book’s Winifred the elephant; a side character that is entirely unnecessary.
Many, many people love Mowgli and will do for years to come, I’ve no doubt. There’s a reason that they’ve opened so many sites. As Wahaca did for ‘Mexican’ food, Wagamamas did for ‘Asian’ food, Mowgli is doing for ‘Indian’. There’s just something about the ghee tins used as cutlery holders on the table, the tiffin boxes that don’t stack - unlike their early days it now feels performative and sanitised. I’d much rather spend the evening in the nearby Nutmeg Street Kitchen or even risk being in the back of a TikTok at Urban Tandoor.
I applaud Katona for her achievements; she is an inspiring businesswoman. Mowgli do a lot of work to raise money for charity; also very admirable. And Katona is from the North, which automatically puts her in the top percentiles of people. But it’s not for me. Like King Louie, Mowgli has high aspirations but is fundamentally flawed. I eat out for adventure and experience, and despite the swings and Jungle Book ties, Mowgli no longer provides that.
Words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Mowgli, 35 Corn Street, BS1 1HT