UK’s oldest Indian restaurant faces closure in dispute with crown estate

Veeraswamy, on London’s Regent Street, first opened in 1926 to ‘educate’ diners about Indian food. Photograph: Jeff Blackler/Shutterstock

It has been a fixture of British-Indian dining since it first opened its doors in April 1926 on the day of Elizabeth II’s birth, serving guests over the decades ranging from Marlon Brando to the late Queen herself.

Yet despite surviving the Blitz and London’s relentlessly competitive restaurant sector, a dispute with the current monarch’s property developer threatens the survival of London’s oldest Indian restaurant just short of its 100th anniversary.