Dishoom’s Permit Room to open in London’s Notting Hill

Notting Hill is set to welcome London’s first Permit Room – a Dishoom spin-off – this spring.

Dishoom launched the all-day bar and café concept in Brighton in November 2023, which was followed by further regional openings in Oxford and Cambridge.

London’s first Permit Room will be taking over the former site of Portobello Road Distillery, according to planning documents filed with Kensington and Chelsea Council.

In its application for planning permission, Dishoom Limited stated the project is estimated to cost up to £2m, with building works due to start in March and end in April.

The Permit Room brand took its inspiration from the “beer and bars and drinking holes” that flourished in post-prohibition-era Bombay.

Liquor sales were banned in the city in 1949, but the law was relaxed in the 1960s and 1970s to allow those with specific permits to drink – giving rise to the city’s ‘permit rooms’.

Dishoom’s Permit Rooms serves the likes of naan rolls, hot chai and mimosas alongside chakli and peanut masala; crispy spinach chaat; jackfruit berry pulao; and puddings such as coconut caramel custard and ice-cream sandwiches.

A spokesperson for Dishoom said: “Dishoom is pleased to be opening its first-ever Permit Room in London, opening on Portobello Road in Notting Hill in spring 2025, following successful openings in Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge.”

Dishoom was founded in London’s Covent Garden in 2010 and has since expanded to seven restaurants in London and regional sites in Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham.

In November last year, the Indian restaurant group brought in advisers ahead of plans to launch its first overseas restaurant in the US.