Ignite
Twenty-two years on Morrison Street, and the Asian Catering Federation has given it the Edinburgh title four times.
Why go
Mohammed Khan opened this room in 2004 and still runs it, with Asad Miah on the stoves.4 The kitchen is Bangladeshi first and North Indian second, which is the distinction most curry houses in this city blur and this one states. The dish worth knowing about is the simikot lamb, sliced off the barbecue and then cooked down with mincemeat, onion, ginger, garlic and fresh coriander, which is a western Nepal preparation sitting on a Bengali menu.1 The tandoor has its own section of the card and the house names it a best seller alongside the biryanis. It runs evenings only now, five to ten, six nights.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the simikot lamb, for the two-stage cooking. It goes over the barbecue in slices before it meets the pan.
- Order: the king prawn Ceylon if you want the heat. The Evening News, working off the card, describes it as
a hot dish prepared with onion, coconut and spices.
1 - Avoid: the biryani if the live fire is what you came for. The tandoor is the section of the card with a flame under it.
What locals & experts say
- Time Out Edinburgh (October 2014): the newest published review of this kitchen, and it is twelve years old.
An avowedly Bengali restaurant with all the usual Indian dishes and a colour scheme that reminds you of a patrician art gallery, Ignite has been around for more than a decade now, a well established eatery.
On the card itself:the main menu offers more choice than anyone will ever need (vegetarian and non-vegetarian, classics, tandoori, seafood and biryanis).
The two-course lunch it praised no longer runs.5 - Asian Catering Federation, Scottish Asian Restaurant Awards 2023: Best Asian Restaurant for Edinburgh, taken at the Sheraton Grand in September 2023. The same reporter put the Scottish shortlist at around seventy with thirteen in the city on 21 September,3 and at seventeen on 12 September, so the field size is unsettled.2
- Asian Catering Federation, Asian Restaurant Awards 2024: Asian Restaurant of the Year for Edinburgh, announced at the Scottish Parliament on 4 September 2024. The same body had the restaurant highly commended, and not a winner, in its 2022 national category, so the run is four wins and one commendation.4
- Mohammed Khan, owner (2024): on what the room has been aiming at since it opened.
Ever since we opened our doors, back in 2004, we've aimed to create the very best Indian and Bengali dining experience for our customers.
4
Good to know
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates the premises Pass, which is not a safety finding. The inspection is dated 8 August 2023, three years before this entry, which is well past the eighteen-month bound and means the hygiene register says nothing current about the kitchen either way.7
- Hours: 5pm to 10pm Tuesday to Sunday, closed Monday. There is no lunch service.6
- Booking: an online form takes parties under twelve, a second form handles larger groups and special requirements, and same-day tables have to go through the phone during service.6
- Price: the menus are published as PDFs and one of them is a scan with no text in it, so no current figure exists anywhere to quote.
- Getting there: 272-274 Morrison Street, at the Haymarket end of the West End, a few minutes from the station and the tram.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Voted best Indian at awards 2023, more awards 2024"
- On 2023: right, with one correction worth carrying. The 2023 award is the Asian Catering Federation's Best Asian Restaurant for Edinburgh, so the body's own category word is Asian and the scope is the city.
- On the "Indian" wording: two other 2023 trophies do use it, from Prestige Awards and from LUXlife, and both run the magazine-and-directory model that this project does not accept as evidence. Neither is recorded as an award row here.
- On 2024: right, and it is the strongest one. Asian Restaurant of the Year for Edinburgh, from the same federation.
Verdict
could-visit — Four Edinburgh titles from the Asian Catering Federation across 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, the last announced at the Scottish Parliament, is repeated recognition from a real trade body and it is the durable part of this case. The kitchen is Bangladeshi first and North Indian second and says so, which most curry houses in this city blur. The simikot lamb goes over the barbecue in slices before it is cooked down with mincemeat, onion, ginger, garlic and coriander, a western Nepal preparation on a Bengali card, and it is the one dish here worth walking for. Above that line the evidence stops. No critic has published a verdict on this cooking since October 2014, that piece carried no byline, and what it judged was a color scheme, the length of the card and a two-course lunch the restaurant no longer serves. No price for a single dish exists in the record, because the menus are published as images. Craft comes first on this ladder and there is nothing published about the craft to move this room up it. Twenty-two years, an owner still running the floor and a current award run earn a place on the board and a stop when you are near Haymarket at dinner.