Gunpowder.

Gunpowder, Spitalfields

The chettinad pulled duck is what the MICHELIN inspector singles out, and the venison and vermicelli doughnut is what he says to start with, off ten tables on White's Row.1

Why go

Harneet Baweja opened a twenty-cover room here in early 2016 and cooked what he grew up with in Kolkata.43 The name is the spice mix the kitchen grinds fresh every day, and the menu comes off old family recipes.1 It holds a Bib Gourmand.1

Baweja is blunt about what the room is for. I'm not going to transport you to India, he told Stefan Chomka. I want you to feel like you're in London, where you can get some great food from the sub-continent and some nice French wine.3

Chef patron Nirmal Save, who cooked at Tamarind in Mayfair before this, runs the kitchen and describes the menu as a decade of travelling the Indian regions rather than settling in one.45 Much of the team that opened the place is still in it.4

Order this / avoid

• Order: the chettinad pulled duck oothappam and the karawari soft shell crab.91
• Order: the venison and vermicelli doughnut, a spiky, crusty, pastry husk filled with heat-packing venison.5
• Order: Maa's Kashmiri lamb chops. Harden's reporters call them some of the most glorious things ever.74
• Order: the rasam ke bomb, a crisp potato-filled sphere balanced on a shot glass of tamarind and mustard sauce, and the molten spice chocolate cake with masala chai custard to finish.5
• Order: three or four plates each. That is the kitchen's own instruction, printed on its menu.9
• Avoid: assuming the branches are interchangeable. The survey ranks this one first and the guide says this is the room that started it.71

What locals & experts say

• The MICHELIN inspector, on the room: Unassuming from the outside, it's a loud, buzzing place once you're in, sporting just 10 tightly packed tables.1
• Nirmal Save, chef patron, on ten years of the menu: Over the last decade, our menu has been journeying through the many regions of India, which is what we have always endeavoured to show London.4
• Harden's survey: the outfit just gets better and better, with innovative, authentic and well-spiced sharing plates and warm service.7
• Hattie Lloyd, The Nudge, who reads the cooking as Bengali where the kitchen calls it pan-regional: Every dish at Gunpowder Spitalfields feels like that 'one dish you have to try', and every dish has its own personality.5
• The British Indian Good Food Guide, 2025: one of twenty-two London rooms in its top hundred, judged on cooking, consistency, hospitality and the overall dining experience.6

Good to know

• Where: 11 White's Row E1 7NF, off Commercial Street.1
• Booking: worth it. Ten tables is the whole room.1
• Pre-theatre: a short menu at 22 pounds for two courses and 25 for three, which survey reporters call excellent value and short on choice.7
• Watch for the India Club nights, which the survey describes as one-off celebrations of a particular city, region or festival.7
• Drink: the cocktails run off the same shelf as the food, a margarita with tamarind spiced water and a puchka-spiced rim among them.5
• Sites: Tower Bridge opened in 2018 and Soho in 2021, and there is a Lisbon room. The Tower Bridge room is closed.38
• Money: small plates ran 6 to 13 pounds on the venue's own menu in August 2026, and the kitchen wants three or four of them a person.9

Verdict

must-visit — Harneet Baweja opened a twenty-cover room on White's Row in early 2016 and cooked what he grew up with in Kolkata; it holds a Bib Gourmand and the guide's inspector counts ten tables. Harden's reporters cover every Gunpowder door and say this is the one, the original and best, tiny but perfectly formed. The name is the spice mix the kitchen grinds each morning, which tells you what kind of Indian cooking this is: chettinad pulled duck, a venison and vermicelli doughnut with a crusty pastry husk, Maa's Kashmiri lamb chops that survey reporters call some of the most glorious things ever. Nirmal Save came from Tamarind and describes the menu as a decade of travelling the Indian regions. Baweja will tell you himself that he is not trying to transport you to India; he wants a London restaurant that happens to serve subcontinental food and French wine. The kitchen tells you how to eat it, three or four plates each, which is the difference between a good dinner here and an underordered one. Small plates ran six to thirteen pounds in August 2026. A Bib room that reporters say just gets better and better, at that money, is worth the trip east.