Shish Mahal Restaurant
A bus driver sent back a plate of chicken tikka in the 1970s because it was dry, and the sauce the kitchen improvised for him, thickened with tomato soup because the owner had an ulcer and could not eat spice, became the most cooked curry in Britain.
Why go
Ali Ahmed Aslam opened Shish Mahal on Gibson Street in 1964, one of the first rooms to put subcontinental cooking in front of Glasgow. His son Asif Ali runs the business now and tells the move plainly: the Gibson Street building subsided because there was too many full up customers and mine works underneath so we had to move to Park Road. We've been here since 1990
(GlasgowWorld). Aslam died on 19 December 2022 at 77, of septic shock and organ failure after a long illness (The Irish Times). The kitchen holds two AA Rosettes for culinary excellence and seats 84 across a room with floor-to-ceiling windows and private dining behind it (AA). The house also bottles its tikka masala, bhoona and hot sauces for sale, which is the closest thing to a written record of the recipe.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the chicken tikka masala, because the argument is the reason you came and this is where you settle your own view of it. Asif Ali's account of the original is short on ceremony:
There's no mad scientist moment, it was just simple as that
1. At lunch the two-course set runs £12.95 against a la carte mains at about £15.90 (Harden's 2026). - Avoid: a full a la carte dinner if you are watching the bill. Jeff says the pricing has run ahead of the cooking, and his fix is to order it as a carry-out.
What locals & experts say
- AA, 2 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence: the inspector's summary is
Destination Indian dining close to Kelvingrove Park,
with the cuisine style logged as Artisan, Indian and Pakistani.2 - GlasgowWorld (Declan McConville, April 2025): Asif Ali on the tikka masala,
a bus driver came in and found the curry a wee bit dry. My dad had an ulcer at the time so could only have something non-spicy so he put the tomato soup into the curry and that's when it was born.
1 - The counter-claims, stated: food historians Peter and Colleen Grove point to a
Shahi Chicken Masala
recipe printed in Mrs Balbir Singh's Indian Cookery in 1961, three years before the restaurant opened, and Monish Gurjal of Moti Mahal says his grandfather was serving the dish from 1947.4 - Harden's 2026: carries the listing with prices and covers but no review, noting
Not enough people have commented yet.
3 - Local rec: Jeff's save, his note below.
Good to know
- Timing: lunch and dinner with an afternoon gap on weekdays, straight through on Friday and Saturday, later start on Sunday. Check the Maps pin for exact hours.
- Booking: the restaurant takes tables through its own system and the room fills, so book at dinner. Delivery runs through the usual three platforms, which is the route Jeff recommends.
- Groups: private rooms seat 12, 30 and 45, which makes it one of the few West End curry houses that can take a real party without splitting it.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Original chicken Tikka masala. Recommend takeaway, but overpriced now."
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour for what the room represents, with the price flagged. This is the kitchen that gets the credit for chicken tikka masala, still run by the founder's family, still on Park Road since the Gibson Street building subsided in 1990, and the AA has it at two Rosettes for culinary excellence. It stops short of must-visit because the invention claim is contested by named food historians, no current critic's verdict exists, and Jeff says the a la carte has drifted expensive.