The Radhuni.

The Radhuni

A whole leg of lamb, butter-filled and marinated in house, feeds four for £325.95 with two days' notice and a deposit.5

Why go

Matin Khan opened this in 2011, in a shopfront on Loanhead's main street, and his son Habibur runs it now as managing partner. Matin runs the family's other restaurant, Itihaas, on Eskbank Road in Dalkeith.3 The name means passionate cook in Bengali, and the family is Bangladeshi, which is why the menu goes places a Scottish curry house usually does not.1 The card has a premium beef section priced a step above everything else, and beef on an Indian restaurant menu in Scotland is itself a marker of a Bangladeshi Muslim kitchen.5

The kitchen has been staffed by Nepalese cooks since the beginning, which Richard Bath noticed in the opening year and which still shows on the menu as Kathmandu Murgh at £15.95.5 Ashok Ram was head chef in 2019, and the report that names him calls him a Curry Chef of the Year winner without giving the year or naming the body that awarded it.3 The 2026 menu still sells Ashok's Special Mix Curry, which is a lead on his tenure. No source since 2019 says whether he is still in post. The tandoor section is wide, running from lamb chops and paneer shashlik up to salmon tikka and a mixed assortment at £21.95. Bath ate off it in the opening year: His huge chunks of tandoori chicken and lamb were perfectly cooked.1

The room is much bigger than the frontage suggests: 150 covers in 2012, 120 by 2019, with a group dining area, a family zone and a paved garden at the back.2 It is also a takeaway, running its own card at its own prices, and every dish that appears on both is cheaper on the takeaway one.5

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Kurzi Lamb, and understand what you are booking. The joint comes with assorted kebabs, vegetables, rice and naan, so it is the whole dinner for four and it lands in the set-feast section beside the two-person set dinner and the six-and-up banquet.5
• Order: the Old Dhaka-style beef tehari, £26. Tehari is a Dhaka rice dish, and naming the city is the kitchen telling you where it is from.
• Order: anything with shatkora. Lamb shatkora is £15.95 and beef shatkora £21, and the menu explains the fruit as a rare and prized citrus native to Bangladesh.5
• Order: the Goan Fish, £17.95 in the room and £14.95 to carry out. The kitchen's own description is A traditional Bangladeshi fish steak cooked in an aromatic sauce.5
• Order: off the Hyderbadi biryani section, spelled that way on the menu, where chicken tikka is £19.95 and lamb tikka £21.95 against £17.95 for the same meats in the standard biryanis. It is layered in a clay pot with saffron.5
• Order: the haggis pakora, £8.95. Catriona Thomson ate it in 2019 and it is still there at a price you can check.
• Order: the sabzi Malayan, £13.95, if you want the dish a critic singled out. Almonds, coconut, pineapple, fruit juices and cream, and Thomson's verdict was that it was mild but heated to a volcanic temperature.2
• Avoid: the European section, where a £26.95 sirloin and chips and £13.95 chicken nuggets sit alongside the tehari. They exist because this is a family restaurant in a small town.
• Avoid: planning on shisha. Hookah pipes lined the garden walls in 2012 and were still on show in 2019, and no source says the service is running now.2

What locals & experts say

• Richard Bath, The Scotsman, January 2012, scored it 7 out of 10 and named the trade-off in one sentence: If Khan has decided that Midlothian tastebuds will drive what is offered at Radhuni, his chefs (who, bizarrely, were all from Nepal, as were the efficient waiters) make up for a lack of authenticity with a real passion and skill at their craft.1
• Bath's 2012 reservation, and what the menu says back: At first sight, however, the menu was as underwhelming as it was long. Bangladesh is part of what was Bengal, a region with a rich culinary tradition, particularly when it comes to fish, yet there was no sign of the traditional Bengali fish dishes.1 Fourteen years later the card carries four of them at £17.95, Rogan Fish, Goan Fish, Fish Jalfrezi and Garlic Fish, and the takeaway menu gathers the same four into a Mach (fish) section under a line saying the kitchen uses the finest quality salmon.5 Bath's summary in 2012 was warmer than his opening: Pristine, welcoming, plush and with food that consistently impressed.1
• Catriona Thomson, The Scotsman Food and Drink, December 2019, described a room that has loosened up since: The exterior looks minute, but it is Tardis-like inside as it magically opens up into a sizeable dining space, which features a large group dining area and designated family zone. She left with the tarka daal and the vegetarian plates as her picks.2
• The Scotsman Scran Awards 2024, winner, Hidden Gem Edinburgh, Fife & East. The category is regional and the region is the award programme's, which is why an Edinburgh label sits on a Midlothian restaurant. The 2025 programme replaced the regional splits with one national award, so there was nothing to defend.7
• British Curry Awards 2019, Best Restaurant in Scotland. The Edinburgh Evening News reported the win from the ceremony at Battersea Evolution, and reported something better with it: Habibur Khan was 23, and the paper called him the youngest person ever to carry off one of the main awards. The year before, the same programme had put Radhuni in its Hot Hundred.3
• Asian Restaurant Awards 2021, Best Asian Restaurant in Midlothian, shared as a joint title with the family's Dalkeith restaurant. Habibur Khan's line on it: I believe it's unique for two restaurants to be declared joint winners in the same area in these awards.4
• On those last two: both stand on what the newspaper reported and nothing more. The venue's own site adds further titles from 2014 onward that no third party has printed, and those are left out.

Good to know

• This is not in Edinburgh. Loanhead is in Midlothian, roughly seven miles south of the city center, and the local authority that inspects the kitchen is Midlothian Council. The venue puts it at a 15 to 20 minute drive from the center and near the Straiton retail park. No bus service number is stated here because none could be confirmed from an authoritative source.
• Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 16 April 2025, no re-inspection pending as at 4 August 2026. Fifteen and a half months old, so it is inside the currency bound and near the far end of it.6
• Hours: closed Monday. Tuesday to Thursday it splits noon to 2pm and 5pm to 10.30pm; Friday and Saturday the evening starts at 4.30pm; Sunday runs straight through from 2pm to 10pm with a banquet menu alongside the à la carte.5
• Booking: no source states a policy, and at 120 covers a weeknight walk-in is realistic. The number is 0131 440 3566, and you need it, because the signature dish and the banquets are both pre-ordered. Banquets start at six people and the set feasts are pre-ordered.
• Price: starters £5.95 to £10.95, tandoori mains £15.95 to £21.95, house specialities mostly £15.95 to £17.95 and topping out at £21.95, vegetarian mains £13.95, rice £5.95 to £6.75, breads £2.95 to £6.75. A set dinner for two is £65.95 and the banquet is from £35.95 a head. Read on 4 August 2026. For scale, Bath printed mains at £7.95 to £13.95 in 2012, so the middle of this menu has roughly doubled in fourteen years.
• Groups and kids: a dedicated group dining area, a family zone, and a banquet menu built for six and up. A table of twelve fits without a negotiation.
• Garden: paved, at the back, marketed for al fresco eating.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "Scran award 🏆"
• On that: exactly right, and it checks out with nothing left over. The Scotsman's Scran Awards gave this room the 2024 regional prize for the Edinburgh, Fife and East area. The regional label is the award's, and the restaurant is in Midlothian.

Verdict

should-visit — The card is where this earns its rung. A whole leg of lamb, butter-filled and marinated in house, feeds four at £325.95 on 48 hours notice with a deposit, and that is a pre-ordered banquet centerpiece almost nobody in this city cooks. Around it sits a premium beef section priced a step above the rest of the menu and topping out at an Old Dhaka-style tehari at £26, shatkora on both lamb and beef, a Hyderabadi biryani tier priced above the standard biryanis, and Kathmandu Murgh off a line the Nepalese brigade has staffed since 2011. Beef, the Sylheti citrus and a Dhaka rice dish on one card are a Bangladeshi Muslim kitchen saying where it comes from, and that regional depth is the standout. The one scored critic verdict backs the craft and names the compromise in the same breath: Richard Bath gave it 7 out of 10 in January 2012 and wrote that a menu tuned to Midlothian taste was redeemed by real passion and skill at the craft. The Scotsman's Scran Awards then gave the room the 2024 regional prize for the Edinburgh, Fife and East area, which is the only recent third-party signal in the file. What all of that buys is a detour and not a journey. Reaching it means seven miles south to Loanhead in Midlothian and a car, the evidence for the plate is a fourteen-year-old score plus an unscored 2019 visit and nothing since, mains have roughly doubled to £15.95 to £21.95, and a European section selling sirloin and chicken nuggets shares the page with the tehari. Go with four people, book the Kurzi Lamb two days out, and order off the beef and the tandoor when you get there.