Khai Khai in Newcastle, with its smoke-enhanced Indian small plates menu, has remained persistently on my list of places to go for more than 18 months, simply because people keep telling me about it. Strong word of mouth is really as good as it gets when choosing where to eat out these days.
There’s so much to quibble about right now: brief opening hours, wild prices, staffing issues, as well as a host of London openings so soulless and unwelcoming that their investors, possibly registered in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes, must be rather alarmed. So, when somewhere such as Khai Khai turns up, featuring a large scoop of Dishoom-style, broad-based likability, it’s genuinely exciting. There’s a large chunk of the familiar on offer here – lamb bhuna, biryani, vindaloo, rotis, kheema naan and so on – but there’s also a lot that will seem mysterious to some diners: kheema pav, say (minted spiced lamb mince and peas in bread), or beetroot shikampuri, which come stuffed with hung yoghurt. The breakfast menu, served from 9-11.30am, features masala mash with pooris (deep-fried bread with potato curry) and akuri toast (onion, tomato and ginger scrambled eggs). “It’s not food, it’s heritage,” it says on the menu.
Gordon Ramsay, who popped into Khai Khai last year, was moved to visit the kitchen and praise the butter chicken (and it is very, very good) and the tandoori pineapple martinis. Harrison Ford, too, has eaten here while filming in the city, so perhaps Indiana Jones 5 will feature a scene in which Indy fights his way through the Bigg Market on a Saturday night, swatting away love bites from women wearing Ann Summers police costumes. After all, a night out in Newcastle – and I have had many since the 1980s – never lacks action. Large groups seem to like the place, as well – there were lots on the day I went.
Khai Khai, its dark frontage obscured by a pot-plant jungle, is tucked away on Quayside, which is one of my favourite places in the UK to hide, because you’re close to the Tyne for a bracing walk, close to the Sage arena and, for a glutton like me, close to both House of Tides and Solstice, which are both deservedly Michelin-starred Kenny Atkinson restaurants (although my most recent trip to the latter felt more worthy of two stars). Experience has taught me that a night spent eating delicate, artful, gong-winning food often means that the likes of onion and samphire bhajis, plump achari tiger prawns and bowls of Kashmiri lamb rogan josh seem all the more enticing the following evening.
Khai Khai’s shtick is the distinct smokiness of many of its dishes, which come out of a Josper oven fuelled by coal and wood. I felt a bit queasy about the term “smoke play” to describe this, however, because it sounds like a kink involving someone chugging their way through an entire packet of Rothmans Untipped, but I am now a huge fan of Khai Khai’s signature tandoori broccoli, which looks wildly charred, as if it had been chipped out of a crack in a Pompeii pavement, encrusted with chilli flakes and pistachio, and littered with microgreens. It turns out to be so wonderful that I spent the whole of the next day wondering how they did it. Liquid smoke and MSG? Specially sourced coals, mystery spices and a blowtorch? Broccoli should not be this delicious.
There is a “chef’s feast” set-meal option for £39 a head that promises to be “worthy of the Last Supper”, which I suspect they think means varied, bounteous and delicious, rather than “eaten with friends who betray you before you get nailed to a big cross”. Regardless, we stuck to the à la carte and ranged across the menu, ordering a very good kale and sag paneer and a Purdah vegetable biryani livened up with jackfruit.
The murgh tikka from the “smoke play” small plates section, meanwhile, is, again, puzzlingly incredible. It is just chicken breast cooked on a Josper, but the depth of charred flavour combined with the softness of the meat is really quite astounding. It’s the kind of food you pause halfway through eating so you can text friends about it.
Old Delhi butter chicken is pretty much more of the same, though in its case it comes in a piquant, herby, smoky slick of greatness. The only disappointment, really, was Josper-smoked aubergine in a thin, pale pool of tamarind vinaigrette with some pomegranate kachumber and a few pine nuts, which gave the impression of a pavement puddle more than actual dinner. Then again, you can’t win them all. Plus there is rhubarb and carrot halwa on the dessert menu, as well as homemade gulab jamun milk dough dumplings with vanilla ice-cream.
Khai Khai is friendly, absolutely jam-packed, open from breakfast until midnight and serves reliably good food without seeming to break a sweat. I, for one, am ready for the Khai Khai roll-out. The high street needs its help.
Khai Khai 29 Queen Street, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1, 0191-261 4277. Open Mon-Thurs, noon-2.30pm, 5-10.30pm; Fri noon-11pm; Sat 9am-11pm, Sun 9am-9.30pm. From about £35 a head à la carte; “chef’s feast” set meal £39; £14 set lunch and £16 set early dinner (small plate, main, lentils, and rice or bread), all plus drinks and service.
