Today, an old decaying sign with the words ‘Glassy’ and ‘Junction’ casts a shadow over the newly laid pavement by Southall’s shiny Elizabeth Line station.

A reminder that a different Southall once existed long before security guards employed by the dystopian housing estate, the Green Quarter, would harass the public for sitting on the grass with their lunches. “What is the charge? A succulent samosa?”

The sign is the only remnant of what was once the UK’s greatest desi pub, but a pub, though, that has long been dead. 14 years of hurt. “Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck.”

Replaced by an alcohol-free vegetarian restaurant with only the shape of the building hinting at where the bar was. The sacrilegious replacing the sacrilegious. No more Guinness, grills and Glassy jubilation gnawing the Gurdwara.

West London’s Glassy Junction has been mourned, lauded and mythologised by Uncles at bars many times since but actually what went on in the pub and who set it up isn’t that well known. The Uncles all tell one staccato story that ends with a hard stop.

But then I was gifted this opportunity to tell its tale definitively after I met Amit Singh, son of Glassy founder, Amarjit, one winter day in Balham, south London. Amarjit was born in Tanzania in 1955, came to the UK and wanted to build an empire of desi pubs. He may have failed to build a chain that enriched him but this was a spectacular endeavour.

Our story starts in 1950s Dar es Salaam, in a bar called Majestic.

Amarjit’s grandad had arrived in East Africa in the 1900s from Punjab, India, to work on the railways and according to Amarjit’s first bold (and, of course, unverifiable) claim, he was the first Indian to be given a liquor licence by the British.

His grandfather was not only a big boozer but apparently had an opium addiction and squandered his money—according to his family—on women and wine. The rowdy but beloved saloon-style bar could be said to be the world’s first-ever desi pub—if I could be permitted my own bold (and, of course, unverifiable) claim.

Majestic was the forerunner to Glassy Junction in that it was chaotic but loved by its locals, who were a mix of Tanzanians as well as displaced Punjabis, and Gujjus.

The family lived upstairs, and this is where Amarjit got his first taste of pub life with Friday nights—payday—being particularly lively.

“The jukebox would be blaring, lots of dancing and fights,” Amarjit says in Pubs for the People. “We used to watch people being flung out through the saloon doors from upstairs [and] we had to clear the broken furniture and glass on Saturday mornings.”

When Amarjit’s father was sacked from the local saw mill, he ended up taking over the licence when grandfather fell into money troubles. Sadly, he then also lost the licence due to a mixture of politics and jealousy from a nearby landlord—Tanzania was starting to become hostile to South Asians.

“My Dad grew up seeing the pub as somewhere familiar, homely even, despite the occasional ruckus,” Amit says. “His proud sense of his publican family pedigree, combined with a fondness for pints of Guinness and London Pride also meant that he had always nursed a hope to become a ‘third-generation’ publican.”

Amit believes that one of myths surrounding Southall is that Punjabis flocked to this West London enclave because of its proximity to Heathrow. It was, he says, actually because the R Woolf Rubber Factory had a general manager who commandeered a Sikh regiment in the Second World War and believed them to be compliant.

Conditions in the factory were unbearable.

Amarjit’s brother was already employed at R Woolf and the two shared a bed in the 1960s, with Amarjit working nights, while his brother was on days. During these months, there were some Southall pubs that served brown drinkers, such as White Swan, now a Gurdwara, and the Featherstone Arms, run by a Fijian-Indian. The Victory pub had a desi landlord in the 1970s, pictured below.

But it’s the Railway Tavern that Amarjit truly loved. And when he left his job at R Woolf to become a dentist he took on the ownership of the surgery next door.

Bill and Brenda were the custodians of the Railway Tavern and they appeared to be a classic mid-century pub partnership with Bill taking on the lease of the pub using his military pension.

But they weren’t prejudiced (like this soldier-like contemporary) and they forged a close bond with the Asian community and especially Amarjit, who began drinking there in 1979.

Most nights, Bill was Mr Hospitality, chatting warmly to his diverse clientele and was more than happy for the Indian Workers’ Association to hold Saturday meetings, where Amarjit’s father would visit from the late 1960s to discuss the conditions at R Woolf.

Life inside the Tavern might have been bliss, but Asian customers would get attacked when leaving and, in 1977, Yog Raj was set upon outside the pub by six men who jumped out of a car and kicked, punched and spat on him before driving off.

But as Amit says: “The very fact that Bill and Brenda welcomed an assortment of black, Asian and white customers, at a time when just down the road the Hambrough Tavern were inviting racist bands to play, is in itself striking.”

Back to Amarjit. He began to become such a Railway Taverner with his dad that he was emboldened to put a bell up on the back of the beer garden (by his next door dentist surgery’s car park) that he would ring whenever he wanted a Guinness—“By the end of the night I used to forget how many times I had pressed the bell.”

This love of the black stuff led to him establishing the Sikh Guinness Club, which organised annual trips to Ireland and in 1983 he even gained a photograph with the then-president Patrick Hillery.

Bill and Amarjit soon became the best of friends, and Amarjit gave the couple free dental care and invited them to family BBQs where they would bring fresh pours of Guinness. In 1986, the couple’s lease came up for renewal and they were told they had to move to a smaller pub as their beer sales were poor. This sounds like a sad moment for Amarjit and for Southall’s Asians but the Railway Tavern was about to turn Glassy.

“Although he was well-versed in drinking, he had absolutely no idea how to actually run a pub,” Amit says.

Luckily, Bill was still on hand. He taught him the ins and outs of the cellar and then convinced the brewery that an Asian man could take over the leasehold when Amarjit completed his innkeeping courses and joined the relevant institutions. On 21 August, 1986 he became the first non-white tenant of a Bass-Charrington pub (bold claim) and the first person licensed to pull pints and teeth (bold claim).

Like this story I wrote here on Wychwood, radical businesses were allowed to thrive by the 1989 Beer Orders which broke up the monopoly the big six breweries were operating. This allowed Amarjit to buy the freehold in 1991, after tolerating a previous contract that demanded high beer sales without permission to implement any of his changes to the pub.

Then came 1994. “My Dad came up with the grand idea to run a pub that reminded him of the year he spent in Punjab as a child before he came to Southall from Tanzania,” he says. Or to quote the man himself: “I’d organise the odd tabla night [South Asian drumming] and people really enjoyed it. Even white and black people seemed to like it.”

These tabla nights gave him them the confidence to lean heavily into turning it into a ‘Punjabi’ pub and the name was a play on Punjabi slang for drink as in “let’s go for a glassy” but the retention of the word ‘Junction’ was the masterstroke and is it showed that it was still at heart a British pub. For all.

Amarjit even retained the Railway’s workers, such as Donna Steward and two other white bar staff, who somehow agreed to wear Punjabi attire on shifts.

Not everyone was happy, though, and one radio phone-in caller complained that “an Indian had taken over and converted an old Victorian pub in Southall and to make matters worse he is also accepting rupees! Whatever will they let happen next?”

The pearl clutching had begun. And then the signs, in English and Gurmukhi, went up alongside huge images of Punjabi folk dancers sent on a boat from India.

Cobra, Kingfisher and Lal Toofan (Glassy) were poured alongside Boddingtons, Holstein and Heineken (Junction). Your pound (or rupee) could buy kebabs from the tandoor from the open-plan kitchen.

(When it came to accepting rupees it was actually a gimmick and the cash was often given away to charities in the Punjab, something which continues today at the near-ish Scotsman.)

Amarjit aimed the pub at everyone, absorbing the already diverse clientele of the previous incarnation of the Railway Tavern, but making multiculturalism even more visible. It wasn’t intended to be an anti-racism space and Amarjit never used the term desi pub but it worked and lived long in the memory for all punters.

The decline of Glassy Junction, Amit believes, started long before it shuttered in 2012, but when it became a very male space. It often had a family-friendly vibe helped by its beer garden until the early 2000s but when the likes of Saptarshi, who worked nearby, visited it was an Uncle-dominated bar.

Sadly, by then Amarjit had become an alcoholic and his plan to create a chain of Glassy Junctions around the country was nothing more than a pipe dream. He outsourced the management and although fights weren’t common, once you get a bad rep it was hard to shake it off. The parents no longer wanted to feed their kids mixed grills. (Sadly, due to his condition details like family members’ names and a few important dates couldn’t be confirmed)

But if you want to see a glimpse of it in its heyday then visit the BFI Archive on London’s Southbank. In it there’s a video from August 1995 when presenters of Big City, Carolyn Marshall and Paul Ross, visited what they called ‘London’s first Indian pub’. In this video you see how multicultural the space was with black, Irish, Asian and white customers enjoying the entertainment—although Carolyn points out that there weren’t many women present.

One customer says ‘it’s just like the Punjab. The friendliest place in the world’. While bar manager, Tarsem Kalyan, explains the concept: “We thought we’d bring the original India to London in a pub. The theme is the village from the Punjab. Many, many years ago when lots of Asians came to this country they would say to their mates: ‘let’s go for a glassy’.

And maybe that chain of Glassy Junctions did happen with many pubs up and down the country being inspired by its village Punjab feel—certainly the Prince of Wales in West Bromwich was. You can also see its name in other desi pubs from Glasgow to Wolverhampton. British tourists in India would always hear locals say: “You’re from London? Glassy Junction!”

Its biggest legacy was to briefly show the world what desis really like best: including everyone in their joy.

• Pubs for the people: The fight for the pint and the nation by

  Sivamohan Valluvan and Amit Singh is out in November 2026

Harj Gahley’s lucky streak began one clear night 17 years ago. He was with friends who took him to a casino offering free drinks; intrigued, he sat down while they explained the rules. He then played the hand he was dealt.

Pints from the pub became chips at the Blackjack table. £20 became £60. He returned. Once a fortnight. Weekly. Daily. No need to bring friends.

Three-card poker. Roulette. The bookies. The horses. The dogs. The football. Blackjack started to piss him off. 19 beaten by 20. 20 beaten by 21. The house was always one better.

His friend tried to explain accumulators but it was too complicated—you’re giving me a headache. But a horse, you can see it run and its odds. £100. £200. On the nose.

Need a system. Racing Post. Speed ratings. Trainers. Stocks. Soft. Hard. Calculated bets.

Then the Vegas skyline gently melted into view. Rushing to the toilets at work to check his bet on his phone. £200. £400 to replace the £200. £600 to replace the £400.

Vegas is now in Harj’s pocket. Psychological war dressed up as entertainment—plenty of hairspray and a big cigar. When the fun stops, he’ll stop—but no one likes losing. Harj has a 100k-a-year job but he wants what he’s been promised, the lifestyle he’s now been opened up to.

Bills. Mortgages. He doesn’t give a shit: his sole focus is now recoup losses and hit the jackpot. Why work like a dog when a few bets could pay off? Why save for years only to cash in your fears?

Harj’s lucky streak ended one clear night six years ago. 16 June, 2020. His wife was pregnant with their second child and holidays kept being cancelled with final demand letters appearing. She gained access to his Monzo account; Harj was £250,000 in debt.

“There’s only so much drugs or alcohol you can take before it gets too much,” Harj says. “Gambling keeps you conscious with cliff-hangers all the time and rather than spending £100 [on booze] you can spend £100 in seconds.”

“Gambling was causing me pain and drink became the thing to numb the pain,” Harj tells me.

Harj isn’t a one-off. There’s thousands like him who have been exploited by betting companies and have lost everything. Some have committed suicide because of their addictions, while many have hurt their loved ones by their actions; Harj tried to kill himself in August, 2020 by driving his car into a road’s central reserve.

I say thousands of addicts but it’s probably much more than we realise because—guess what—betting companies won’t provide data that could lead to us being shocked into calling for radical reform. They won’t even release information on how much revenue they gain from the highest volume gamblers.

Harj now works as a speaker, helping people (especially those of South Asian origin) with addiction, and is regularly contacted by high-stakes gamblers. One man recently told him he lost £70,000 in a few hours, which shows there’s little due diligence taking place in this growth—and self-regulated—tax-avoiding industry.

Worst still, the dangers of drinking while gambling never seem to be discussed which is something quite alarming if you consider how alcohol affects your rationale. I don’t think, therefore, it’s an exaggeration to say that the connection with betting machines and pubs is bleak.

“The reasons why pubs have them is because it keeps the punters in and they drink more,” Harj says.

He then goes on to explain that he’s never heard of instances where publicans or managers have stopped problematic gamblers—you may get an “are you ok to gamble this amount” very occasionally, he tells me. In fact, in establishments where alcohol and betting take place it’s often the opposite.

“I’ve been told by people in the industry that they’ve been told to not actively intervene with people who have a problem,” Harj tells me.

When it comes to the logistics of the gambling industry, facts are purposely hard to obtain, but Harj tells me that unless a betting terminal is in a large chain pub then most don’t even take a small cut of the profits. It simply is a way of keeping gamblers in a boozer. And a lot of these players who you’ll see in the pub all day are addicts—a severe disorder being indulged by those who who normally value community.

But would you drink in a pub that was serving well-known alcoholics? No. But gamblers? I have regularly. The issue, perhaps, is that a lot of people don’t culturally see gambling addiction as a systemic problem or one that’s as harmful as other compulsions. Or perhaps it’s become interwoven into some people’s daily lives that we just accept it.

Which is obtuse considering that medical practitioners, such as the NHS, consider it to be like a substance addiction because it constantly stimulates the brain’s reward system and the fallout heaps pain on everyone concerned.

“If a publican has a child or family member that commits suicide because of gambling do you think they would have a betting machine in their pub?” Harj says.

But we’re not talking about fruit machines that pay out jackpots of £20 (AKA arcade machines) but fixed-odd betting terminals, which are endemic in discount chains (Spoons etc) and—worryingly for South Asians—places I mention in my book, Desi Pubs.

Anyone can lose big on fixed-odd betting terminals—like this man in Gateshead, who squandered £100K—and they’re ubiquitous in the most deprived areas, according to the BBC, with each terminal taking an average of over £48K a year.

And if you walk into the pubs where desis drink and you’d see the uncles and the younger crowd playing these machines. In fact, they’re in a lot of the photos in my book, so it may surprise you that white people are more likely to be gamblers.

“We don’t gamble as much as white ethnicities but the [South Asian] ones that do are five times more likely to suffer severe gambling-related harms,” Harj says.

In other words South Asians might not gamble as much but we do have huge problems when it comes to gambling addiction.

Harj’s family—like mine—were massive football fans and betting firms target us; the first-ever sponsor of the Kabaddi World Cup was Paddy Power and potential role models, such as Punjabi singer Karan Aujla (13.8m+ Instagram followers), are sponsored by the likes of Stake.

“They are cynically and systematically targeting people of South Asian origin because they understand how our minds work,” Harj says. “They don’t give a shit about you, your family or your well-being—they’re after your money at all costs.”

This makes betting inescapable—whatever your ethnicity is—especially if you’re planning to go to the pub to watch football.

Not only are a majority of domestic teams sponsored by gambling firms but the in-play bets (say, when you are told the odds of a bet on the next goalscorer) are ubiquitous. It’s all a way of getting the viewer’s eyes from the TV screen to their devices. And it works.

Just ask the family of Inder Daggar. The former captain for the Slough men’s hockey team was jailed for six years after swindling about £3m from loved ones, friends and investors to fund his addiction.

“South Asians don’t think it’s a problem but there’s a massive amount of secrecy, more so than in alcohol or drugs,” Harj says. “It’s sharam [a widely used Asian term for shame] because they fear being ostracised or being shunned. It happens a lot more than you think.”

Harj’s wife discovering his gambling was actually the beginning of his winning streak. He was living with his in-laws and when his wife’s father found out he said: “he has a problem, let’s help him”.

They urged him to get professional help, so he reached out to his local Gurdwara (temple) and was infuriated by how they judged him instead of showing some empathy—“they made me feel like a piece of shit”. He gained a therapist from the NHS, who gave him Zoom sessions as it was during the Pandemic, but this didn’t work as they didn’t understand or realise the weight of his cultural baggage.

Then he tried to kill himself, which he admits was so botched that he escaped injury.

But his next therapist changed his fate. “She made me realise that people with addicts have a superpower,” Harj says. She said that he should harness the energy he used to gambling to get himself out of debt and Harj offered his services as a commission-only salesperson at his friend’s failing security firm.

£30K in revenue became £1.25m (it’s now £7m-£8m a year in revenue). It then gave him the platform to help others.

Harj’s story is almost the reverse of mine—I did not have progressive, understanding parents.

My father had substance abuse issues, especially with alcohol, and he gambled and exposed it to me at a young age. He joined a casino in Luton, blagging it to my mum by saying it was so he could use the car park when we went to the football.

This meant matchdays as a 10-year-old started at midday watching him gamble and drink (and then drive) in one of the least glamourous places imaginable.

In late 1980s Bedfordshire, life often was slow-paced but those casino hours were stupefyingly boring to the point where they actually provided a decent service. The best advert for not gambling. Actually his anger and problematic drinking when he lost is always a traumatic reminder of how much gambling was a wrecking ball in our family life.

All this is wrapped up in shame—sharam is a shroud that enwraps my childhood memories.

I was shown how pathetic the gambling world is and that hasn’t changed in 2026. I do gamble very occasionally but because I know I have issues with adrenaline—any serious reporter will tell you the job is all about the thrill of the chase—I only place bets that take a long time to be realised (a team to win the league; the next Prime Minister).

I also believed that if I won I was beating these gambling companies that I truly despise. But once I get that adrenaline rush I want it more and more and the house— corrupt as it is—always wins.

So after hearing about Harj, I deleted all the betting apps and have even thought about giving watching the World Cup a miss—go to a nice freehouse without TVs instead, while everyone else watches the latest sham in the sun.

And I hope Harj’s story makes anyone affected by gambling reach out for help. The shame you may feel is nothing compared to the sharam we all should feel for creating a society where the highest-grossing salary is handed to a founder of a betting firm.

Until we force legislators to do the right thing, we can only hope that publicans see these machines for what they really are. The stuff of nightmares.

But just imagine a world where one of these virtual casinos is replaced by a jukebox: it’s easy if you try.

Harj’s charity Soch Care provides free, confidential and non-judgmental support to South Asians that are struggling with gambling, drugs, substance abuse and mental health, offering support in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Arabic and English.

The national gambling helpline is on 0808 802 0133

Apologies to Louise Wener (Sleeper: Vegas), Shirley Jackson (The Lottery) and John Lennon (Imagine) for providing some of the phrases and imagery I’ve pinched.

• Desi Food Guide is available to paid subscribers for £5/month or £50/year. If you want a taste of what to expect the first four posts can be read for free here.

• I’m offering my award-winning book, Desi Pubs, at Amazon prices. I can have it sent to you very quickly for £12.29! Message me on Bluesky for copies. There’s a review of it here - ‘The most important volume about pubs for half a century.’

“In those days everything shut at 5pm,” Peter says. “The laundry would open until 9pm. Next door was a pub which had a piano and I was always fascinated why everything was closed and this pub was open.

“Through a swing door I could hear people laughing and see them smoking, drinking and enjoying themselves. I thought: ‘I want one of these when I grow up’.”

Peter’s Hindu family is from Kenya and they were all vegetarians when they left the African country - I mention this as it was difficult in those days for anyone to be a vegetarian, not just a member of the Asian diaspora, and Peter had no choice but to eat meat at school.

The Patels initially started their new lives in Croydon, eventually moving to Mile End Road, East London in 1972. But the memory of the pub next to the laundrette stayed with Peter so much so that when he passed his driving test in 1976 he took his friends to the outer London town to find a pub that was similar to his childhood recollection.

“We went to the Wheatsheaf,” he recalls. “We didn’t know that in the evening it used to get bikers coming in and they chased us out.”

Peter faced similar prejudice in those days when he visited a pub with friends in Lewisham, South London, where I now live. A racist purposely spilt his drink on him, claiming Peter had tripped him up and demanded more than another drink. The atmosphere turned rancorous, the publican sided with the attacker and the Asians were kicked out despite already spending about £40 (the equivalent of £300 today).

“It was a lot of money as a pint used to be under a pound then,” he says. “We did nothing at all. That’s when I decided we needed something for Asian people. Not many Asian people went to the pub - it was mainly white people. When we went most people were all right but one or two wanted to pick a fight.”

Not only fights but shootings. And it seemed fulfilling his lifelong dream of setting up a pub was difficult. In those days, Peter recalls, licences were only given to wet pubs and he wanted to serve Indian food and when he applied the relevant authorities said the venture sounded more like a restaurant.

“Indian people,” he says. “Don’t want to go to the pub and have a curry afterwards when the pub is closed. They want to eat with their drinks. There was one club in Wembley [called Premier].”

Watneys bought into the idea that running an Indian club/pub was feasible from the example set by the Premier in Wembley and even agreed finances with Peter but the brewery’s volume demands were too high. Instead he went to the bank for the money which allowed him to set up a freehouse and run things the way he wanted.

He chucked in his job at a newsagent and in 1988 he set up the Century Club but there was one group that he wasn’t prepared for: Asian gangs.

Peter may have risked groups of bikers in Croydon and racist landlords in Lewisham but his tenacity to provide something safe led to a band of loyal customers, which was the perfect riposte to all this prejudice he had experienced. As someone who’s first pint was in a racist pub similar to the ones Peter endured, I love the idea of a brown person’s beer initiation being in the opposite type of place - a venue that is full of fun, life and free of hate.

Especially if that person is older than me, which shows that my horrible market town pub experience with people shouting ‘taxi’ when I walked in wasn’t ubiquitous, wasn’t universal.

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Below is a postcard from sunny Southgate…

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Below is a postcard from Wembley…

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Below is a postcard from Smethwick…

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With the kind of food and insight you can’t resist

Come with me to the Scotsman and as the bible says, we’ll break bread in our new home, eat together with glad and sincere hearts.

And what bread. Naan, hung like the catch of the day. Known as table naan in other parts of the country, this is not-so-flat bread that soaks up the trauma of the past. A history that lingers like a ghost in the walls.

There’s a wonderfully disorientating feeling whenever I walk around Southall - 25 years ago it was unlike anywhere else in London that I’d seen when I moved to the area as a student. I still feel the same a quarter of a century later.

Southall is so varied, so personal to me, that it is hard to describe it to people who are unfamiliar with it. The best I can say is: Imagine a town that has somehow managed to recreate many aspects of daily life in South Asia—it’s often dubbed “Little India”—but appears distinctly harmonious, with Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian residents all living side by side.

Fireworks when India win. Pan leaves. Super Singh’s.

A friend, Saptarshi Ray, who used to work in Southall for a magazine, once told me: “We used to joke that this place gets more and more like India every day. It’s only a matter of time before you see a cow walking down the high street.”

But for all that Southall looks to me like South Asia at a glance, it is still inescapably British-Asian. I fear change is coming, though, with the new ‘Green Quarter’ feeling like it could rip Southall’s soul away.

I spoke to a feted restaurant owner who gushed that it was more like Dubai than Southall. I got a taste of that Emirates myself, when I walked through the Berkeley Homes development and saw a security guard telling people not to sit on the grass next to the station.

At the Scotsman, thankfully, there’s a slice of Southall that’s being preserved. The more inclusive, welcoming kind. I’ve brought all types here including friends from other countries, like Nick, who lives in New York - he took a lot of convincing to travel from the centre for a football match. He was astounded and it changed him.

On the way home he told me: “America is famous for being a melting pot but you guys do the real thing without making any fuss about it.”

But the fuss is needed because it hasn’t always been like this. In fact, the Scotsman was a hostile pub where customers of India origin were segregated or worse. The current owner, and chef, Shinda Mahal, below, helped change this when it was bought by the guys behind the legendary Glassy Junction.

Shinda once told me: “Into the 1980s, no Indians were allowed. Then they allowed us in [in the 1990s] but only on one side.” The colour bar is part of Southall’s history and the British civil rights movement, as another pub showed - the Hambrough Tavern.

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‘You got me. How much money do I owe you, gaffer?’

Mohammed chases the men fleeing his father’s Birmingham Indian restaurant to an alleyway. All but one escapes and Mohammed sees that this coward is out of breath, sweating and avoiding eye contact. He’s totally inebriated, the drunkest out of a gang who had been crashing back pints of lager in the Rajpoot since the pubs chucked out, right until its 2am closing time about half an hour ago.

He calls Mohammed ‘gaffer’ only because he owes him money for a large unpaid bill. At his table he used a far more offensive term.

The man winces and takes his wallet out.

Money’s tight at the Rajpoot – competitors were practically giving away some dishes to entice people in, especially lager drinkers - and anyone who could manage to dodge paying dented takings. But Mohammed’s good at spotting bolting ‘customers’ – they would have racist conversations, order lager after lager and be loud, annoying the regulars.

If they got away they would talk and you’d be seen as a soft touch.

Mohammed was exhausted. He had been serving families at lunch – the one time as a committed Muslim he didn’t mind pouring a pint or opening a bottle of wine - and then tolerated the gruelling post-pub crowd. He would size them up to see if they were trouble makers - making split-second judgements and ushering them out if he saw a tracksuit or a tattoo on their neck. Anyone but pissheads, he would think.

He looks at the guy’s pasty face but thinks about his dad who works 364 days a year - even on Christmas Day he would check the restaurant’s pipes. Today one drunk practically fell into the Rajpoot at 1.59am and he still served him despite the kitchen being cleaned ready for tomorrow’s lunches. The Rajpoot: his father’s world, his pride and his new home since he left Bangladesh for Birmingham.

‘Put your wallet away.’ Mohammed becomes someone else. He beats the shit out of him.

A few weeks ago he saw through teary eyes, his father being smashed in the head repeatedly with a wooden pole. The ambulance arrived at the Rajpoot and the attackers escaped before Mohammed could catch them.

This was the late 1980s and violence, tension and racism were a part of day-to-day life for his restaurant. Today I want to tell the flip side of this and how Babur in Honor Oak Park, south-east London, thrived in this era.

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Below is a postcard sent from where I have the good fortune to have this desi-ish dish…

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Below is a postcard sent from where I have the good fortune to have this desi-ish dish…

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Below is a postcard sent from where I have the good fortune to have this desi chicken dish…

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(It’s also my birthday today!)

It was the summer of 2023.

My book had just been published and I travelled to the Regency in Queensbury, north-west London, to meet journalist Phil Mellows, who was to interview me about my experiences visiting desi pubs up and down the country.

I suggested the Regency to meet because I had fallen hard for its soothing welcome and this warmth always seemed to be reciprocated; the waiting staff - young and old - whenever I visited greeted me with so much affection I was moved. But also I wanted to give Phil a taste of the kind of journey - both physically and mentally - I undertook in the book, travelling to the outskirts for something different. Something desi.

Phil deftly described the trip in the article: “On the northern outskirts of London, past Wembley and past a surprise splash of countryside, you come to Queensbury, an example of 1930s built-for-purpose suburbia, the Tube sign skewered high on a spike, proud of its role in commuter-land.”

We broke (naan) bread, watched the cricket and he kept notes. I didn’t care too much about what he would write and wanted the excuse to spend time with a friend who had been given expenses. So I guess after a few pints of Rothaus I was loosened up and able to share this about how tricky it was to earn trust when trying to conduct interviews:

“Some publicans were reluctant to talk. I had to coax them into it because no one had shown any interest in them until I came along and they didn't understand why anyone should find it worth writing about. Their culture had been undervalued.”

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Today’s Substack is ‘free to air’ - like Test cricket and Premier League football should be - so that the people who have contributed can gain the widest readership possible. (Also a desi publican I was going to interview suffered a bad injury and had to postpone. He’s fine, though, and I’ll be bringing his story soon.)

On July 11, I asked various participants to write a blog, web post, newsletter (like this one) or even a SM thread on the subject of food in pubs. I’ve rounded up their work and at the bottom have written about the dangers of being a go-to voice on pub food.

The idea of me getting involved in the Session #149 was because I read Alan McLeod’s blog on a regular basis and he champions writers who may have (yet) found a large audience.

He lives in Canada and his contribution is about his country and how pubs approach food.

“In large swaths of Canada there is still a distance between good beer and good food. Sure there are bright spots. The taverns of my Nova Scotian youth still seem to offer local offerings like steamed mussels or boiled dinner instead of french fries or a burger as a snack. And, pre-pandemic, some craft beer bars did move to adding a better sort of food service like a BBQ smoker, maybe on a trailer out in the parking lot. But these are not necessarily cheaper options. Not what I think of as pub food.”

Pudding: Here’s Alan on the previous session - the subject then was pub quizzes.

It’s interesting that Alan’s contribution shows there’s an expectation that pub food should be cheap. This affordability is something that Joey Leskin mirrors in this blogpost and how difficult it is to find decent fish and chips in London pubs. This piece draws on his connections with a former pub staple that has been hit post-Pandemic.

“Thanks to the Dutch Sephardic Jews (shoutout great-great-great-grandma) who brought over the concept of fried fish in the 18th and 19th century and the Belgians who brought over chips at around the same time, accidentally building us the most ‘British’ of meals”

Pudding: Leskin also wrote this excellent piece for Pellicle on the emergence of independent beer in Thailand.

As a former Leeds local I was happy to see Matt Curtis write about the Highland Laddie. During this excellent portrait Matt hints at how the battle between gastropub v proper pub can polarise drinkers and eaters.

“But how much is this a proper pub as much as it is a restaurant, or dare I say it, a gastropub? Is it designed for someone who wants to pop in for a couple of pints after work? Or is it a space made for three-hour sit down meals where food takes precedence over drinking? I’m keen to find out who, exactly, the Highland Laddie is actually for.”

Pudding: Matt lives in Manchester but he grew up in Lincoln and he writes about the cathedral city here.

We’ve had fish and chips, so on to another ‘British’ classic: pies. John Porter has his definition which he went to war over when he was Publican Food Editor:

“Sadly, though, what arrived was not, by my definition, a pie. It was a small casserole dish containing the filling as described, but with just a bit of puff pastry floating on top. That, in a phrase I first coined around 20 years ago, isn’t a pie. It’s just stew with a crouton.”

And there’s also Chris Griffiths on pies (and more) here.

“The local variations added to the interest. Hot or cold, pork or beef, standing alone or with peas and/or gravy (and back in the Black Country, make that grey peas). Quality varied: some pubs were proud of their connections with local butchers, others offered branded pies. A Holland’s pie from Baxenden, anyone?”

Pudding: Porter on beer market restrictions

The Beer Nut is being modest when he messaged telling me he’s failed the assignment. In fact, he details pizza in a Dublin restaurant which serves great beer.

“Authentic Irish pub food is the toastie and the bag of crisps, and I'm not much of a consumer of either. So I'm flipping the topic. Instead of pubs and food, I'm doing a restaurant with beer. I would say that restaurants with good beer are probably more common than pubs with good food.”

Pudding: This from the Beer Nut on Desperados is very entertaining.

Alex on Substack tells me he isn’t a fan of chips in pubs (!) but Katie Mather is and I wholly agree with her love of the ones flash fried in Spoons.

“A person can talk shit about Wetherspoons all day, and I will join in, but their chips have always been godly, the best of all the frozen chips. I am certain they are coated in semolina for extra crunch, leaving the centres fluffy and light.”

Pudding: Katie on gastropubs

Chips. Fish and chips. Pies. How about Pretzels? Lisa Grimm wants you to hear her out on this.

“They can be parbaked and frozen, and warmed up in a relatively smallish toaster oven or even a microwave. They are the perfect salty snack, with enough heft to nearly be a meal – ideal to keep punters in the pub, while also keeping them from getting, well, messy. And here in Ireland, they could be paired with some absolutely phenomenal local cheeses, or even cheese dips.”

Pudding: Lisa on the Swift

I don’t know if pretzels count as junk but Boak and Bailey wonder where the quality has gone in this pub food category. They also ask ‘why is it that so many cultures have the perfect snacks to go with beer but absolutely refuse to sell them in pubs?’

“Across the border into Bosnia we enjoyed the similar but different ćevapi [pic below]. It’s the simplest dish imaginable – skinless sausages, flatbread, sliced white onion – but the secret ingredients are (a) bicarbonate of soda and (b) time. The bicarb somehow makes the meat bouncier and more satisfying, after at least 12 hours sitting in a fridge before cooking.”

PS: There was also an excellent comment on the Taiwanese brew pub chain Zhang Men.

Pudding: Whenever I feel sad I read B&B’s review of my book Desi Pubs.

Laura Hadland writes about many dishes in this post including orange chips and a samosa - which sounds like the best pub food combo so far.

“Speaking of Leicester, any conversation about pub food has got to include a gratuitous picture of the cheese and onion cobs at the Blue Boar in the centre of the city. They were, and are, the originators of the doorstop cheese cob in my opinion. The first to go viral and rightly the benchmark ever since.”

Pudding: Laura on sexist tropes

And, finally a bit of literature. Liam K at Irish Beer History has a short story on the subject of pub food and it’s gripping.

“Seamie carefully cut the sandwich in half and watched the cheese ooze out from the edge. There were lads that would eulogise about a pint of stout but surely a decent sandwich deserved some special words too?”

Pudding: Liam on Good Green Beer

Thank you for all that contributed and hopefully I’ve not missed anyone!

UPDATE: I have missed someone. Blame Bluesky being poor for hashtags!

The Minister for Food and Drink on how good food and good beer don’t usually go together.

“Good food and good beer does happen from time to time. Independent village pubs seem to be the bastions of this. We’ve camped near some over the years, like the Church House in Sutton, or the Lazy Trout in Meerbrook. These generally independent pubs just seem to have a knack for making decent food and looking after decent beer from local brewers. Both of them happen to be dog friendly too!”

Am I an expert on pub food?

I have to turn down a lot of interview requests. This is from bitter experience of being used as a source for articles and filmed content when I see the end result and belatedly realised I disagreed with the agenda used.

While I try to be led by the sources in articles I write, others start with a proposition I find, well, preposterous. Most common is ‘can desi pubs save the pub industry?’ and I’ll explore why this should be ridiculed through the case study of Desi Palace in Harrow.

Raj opened up this north north London after being given a 0% business rate because he was Asian, despite the footfall expected in an area where many had a large disposable income. With soaring energy prices he faced an issue of how to pay to keep the charcoal grill and tandoors alight but one call and a mere mention of his surname - Singh - led OVO to reduce his bill by half.

He wondered, though, how he could pay his staff in the day when the National Insurance change made his overheads so expensive but then he read about the current Government’s Desi Pub NI Allowance and realised he could operate 12 hours a day seven days a week.

(Finding staff isn’t an issue too because any desi pub is in the jurisdiction of the Euro, an amendment tabled after a few rightwing MPs attended a series of curry awards and started empathising with the plight of the Indian diaspora.)

Raj then went to his local cash and carry and found all the produce that he needed reduced because any ingredient used in Indian cooking from tomatoes to onions to spices - even flour - has been ring fenced to protect it against inflation rises.

He thought about stocking craft beer but Cobra being a brand setup by desis Karan Bilimoria and Arjun Reddy (although brewed now in Burton upon Trent by Molson Coors) is exempt from taxation and offers a huge profit compared to other macro lagers.

All this means that a mixed grill piled high with meats can be sold at £15 for a huge profit. With a pint washed down at a lot less than a Spoons.

By now you should get my point: Raj doesn’t exist but if he did his desi pub is as likely to struggle as any.

The worrying thing is sometimes this type of proposed article comes from an Indian publication - despite me pitching an article as a journalist and - dare I say - expert. But this should be no surprise - as India’s middle class grows, so does their misunderstanding of what the real British-Indian experience is.

Actual desi pubs - the ones originally set up so that brown people have a sanctuary against racism and segregation as opposed to a restaurant marketing itself as a posh pub - are mixed class spaces, like pubs should be. And these are the pubs - often in large buildings - that face very similar economic headwinds to all pubs.

So if you see an article on desi pubs or video and wonder why I’m not quoted then you know why.

None of this makes me an expert on pub food, though. I have only one strong opinion: we should all be able to afford to eat in pubs where the kitchen staff are paid a fair wage.

“We already have a pub that is sustainable and the way we run it, you won’t find me behind the bar. We’ve got all the classic things to drive trade but we have to work to make it a destination pub.”

John is sharing some of the struggles of being custodian of a pub that is loved and sells one of the best desi pies in the country. The reason why it’s not an easy operation lies on the doorstep of the pub.

Its surrounds are changing fast but there’s always been plenty of turmoil here: the garish glare of former red-light districts, noisy ex-manufacturing hubs and homes that once housed a now-vanished Italian community - all of which have been bulldozed.

The one word forever connected to the pub is survivor. And all around this Victorian boozer more and more demolition is taking place, spreading din, dust and road closures whenever you peer out from the large terracotta-lined windows.

“And yet the pub has survived,” says John. "It just sits there - it got itself listed. But how it survived, almost just beggars belief, doesn’t it?”

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There’s a difference in how the older generations approach work.

I often make the mistake of asking people senior to me who spend their days grafting in restaurants questions such as “do you enjoy being in the kitchen?” When I asked this to Asif Saleemi, of Little Punjab, he kindly explained his work ethic.

“Enjoyment is one side; commitment is on the other side. But it’s important to be on the move. One can retire but the health deteriorates, especially if you’re [not used to] relaxing or taking it easy. To keep oneself busy: that is important.”

This faux pas comes from the gift of undertaking a job I find enjoyable and when the Saleemi family, daughters Aiysha and Shazia as well as mum, Nadia, and dad, Asif, spent a hot Saturday afternoon explaining their Indian food to me, I felt immense pleasure.

Especially because being allowed this kind of access isn’t something I feel is a given right for any journalist especially because our stock is so low - and deservedly so. I’m not just talking about food writing but any mainstream press ‘hound’ who sees their job as clicks rather than clicking with citizens.

I’m, therefore, being put in a trusted position by the Saleemis and I hope I’m able to celebrate Asif and Nadia’s work in the way it deserves. And to convey just how much their food, service and presence is loved by their loyal customers.

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For the July edition of The Session I’m asking participants to write a blog, web post, newsletter (like this one) or even a SM thread on the subject of food in pubs. At the end of the month I’ll post a list of all the various links. Here’s #145 on beer critique. And #148 on pub quizzes.

I encourage people to be critical, whimsical or celebratory. In fact, I hope they will be inspired by today’s format which will take one subject and then recommend a few good pub food options.

It’s a chance for me to support all types of writers and to show some solidarity among those who are enthusiastic about pubs (and possibly food or at least pub food!) The deadline for submissions is 24 July and I’ll publish them here the next day.

Considering I’ve written a book on Desi Pubs and covered the topic extensively you’ll think I’ll be selling you the idea that Indian food is the ideal pub food. It is. But it shouldn’t come cheap because of the marination time, energy costs of a grill, tandoor and quality ingredients needed that come at a price. Because of this I think that the days of a family saving money by sharing a mixed grill are rare or being threatened in nearly every area.

Or maybe it’s just nice to look at food in pubs without the desi lens. For once.

Instead I want to examine the growth of Yard Sale Pizza in London and what it says about the state of pubs in 2025. For those who have never experienced this recent phenomenon Yard Sale delivers to taprooms, pubs and bars around the capital in spaces that often don’t have a kitchen or can’t make selling food economical. The latter is key to this article.

YSP started in Clapton in 2014, by Johnnie Tate and Nick Buckland, and this shop was apparently opened by actor Macaulay Culkin. It’s accounts are under the name Well Street Pizza Company Ltd and in 2024 it had £1.4m in the bank with a yearly profit of £1.2m, according to Companies House.

The list of venues where you can use an app to get a pizza handed to your table is huge; I counted that Yard Sale is the only food option at a staggering 128 places. All of these 128 spaces tend to be indie and/or craft-y; the Shirker’s Rest in south-east London where I do a regular-ish shift doesn’t have a kitchen and the Korean fried chicken place next door is ridiculous - they refuse to provide sauces and people seem to visit solely for selfies. (This is a New Cross problem where there’s even a shop selling just crumble. Yes crumble as in apple crumble.)

Yard Sale will sell quite a few pizzas at the Shirker’s every night - I have to rip the boxes up afterwards - and will offer a free staff pizza or discount to servers. It’s a great business model when you factor in they run a their own fleet of motorcycle or battery-operated cyclists from 14 kitchens (which also have some seating). As it happens I live far too near to one of these shops and it’s a good option when I’m doing solo childcare and need hot food after my kids’ bedtimes.

So much Deliveroo food doesn’t get to you hot (multiple drop offs are the issue) and those types of apps take a huge commission, which Yard Sale avoids by using its own delivery staff. They also sponsor local kiddies’ football teams; it’s more ethical than a late-night McDonald’s order. But is it cheap?

I’ll let you decide. An 18-inch margherita is £20 (they say it “feeds two hungry people”, again I’ll let you decide if that’s true) and an 18-inch pepperoni climbs to £30.50. There’s a bore in my local boozer of a certain age who calls it cheese on toast that can be made for a couple of quid.

He’s half right as an ex-owner of a Michelin restaurant confirmed to me yesterday that these pizzas do have huge margins and the dough itself would be a fraction of that price. The business model also has to factor in a large marketing budget and they often do heavily-publicised collaborations with other food & drink outlets and even celebrities.

How do they taste? Pretty darn good to be honest. The crust is near perfect at all times - find me another delivery firm that can guarantee this level of char and moisture of dough - and the marinara somehow manages to feel indulgent despite seeping into the dough as it’s schlepped though London traffic. Factor in that very pizza can be made vegan with luxurious toppings then you can see why it’s an excellent taproom option.

My issue, though, is its ubiquity. And how in south-east London the mid-range fish n chip or pie option has vanished with only terrible microwaved food prevailing in this category. A Spoons. A Greene King. (The community-owned Ivy House in Nunhead is the outlier here but even they supplement their menu with pizzas.)

And to make matters worse the type of traditional place that would’ve done me my decent chip lunch has worked out Yard Sale Pizza is the easier option. In fact, if I’m with the kids I take them to this gastropub nearby where they have a good kids menu and know how to talk to children. As you’ve guessed, though, the food may be good but the beer options are as terrible as you’d expect from a tied-pub that pretends not to be a tied-pub. Gastro about food. Macro about beer. A pint of Estrella Damn here is nearly £7.

Yard Sale thrives in places like this. Yard Sale thrives across London.

But here’s three great pubs that buck the trend when it comes to food and give me my dream plate in a traditonal setting.

1 - The Hope in Carshalton

I’ve an upcoming article on this pub for Pellicle and when I told my partner about the food here I wasn’t expecting enthusiasm because they use microwaves. But I piqued her interest by saying these are batched cooked delights like chili, curries or dals. “Who wouldn’t want home-cooked food in a pub?” she asked.

You get this fare in a pot with bread or rice as a side for about £8. Manager Nick Williams told me: “I don’t see why pubs don’t steal this idea; you can’t copyright batch cooking and then sell it with some nice bread.” Side tip: The Express Tavern in Kew also does pot meals but without the choice of the Hope - go on a Monday when you can get a pint of Bass for £3.50

2 - The Woodsman in Birmingham

3 - John Harvey Tavern in Lewes

Desi Food Guide is available to paid subscribers for £5/month or £50/year. If you want a taste of what to expect the first four posts can be read for free here.

“Kopitiam is homey. Every time my parents or grandparents took me to [a] Kopitiam they knew each other like family,” says Med Pang who runs Bayswater’s Med Salleh with Koi Lee.

The kopitiam is a Malay hospitality concept which encompasses cafe, street food and restaurant culture and can be found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand.

Put simply, they are ramshackle coffee shops (think a humble brew with condensed milk) that usually also offer food. A simple definition is hard though because of cultural, regional and national differences.

Med’s first forays into a kopitiam was when he was aged seven growing up in Malaysia and would be handed roti bakar (toasted white sandwich loaf) in the mornings in Hunanese institutions set up to serve tin miners from the age of seven.

On the opposite end of the scale are ones I’ve been to with my dad that reflect his Indian-Malay (and Singaporean) background - they were called Mamaks (these get the name from the Tamil term for maternal uncle, or maa-ma). There’s also warungs, which are traditional bamboo stalls.

If this sounds confusing then this might be because Malaysia is so rich in diversity or as Med, who is of Chinese descent, puts it the cultures - especially in food - crossover each other. What Med ate at home is Chinese food, such as poached chicken, choy sum, gai lan but his neighbours and friends were Malay and they would sit on the floor and eat their food.

A kopitiam may have started out serving one type of culture’s food but they soon became a meeting place for the hyphenated nature of Malaysian’s population helping everyone consider themselves Malay. Their food soon became everyone’s.

And in Med Salleh, Med and Koi, are offering their take on a kopitiam as well as trying to introduce customers to this pan-cultural Malaysia.

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