London’s Sagar restaurant offers authentic Indian cuisine that will in many ways, make you feel you could be just minutes away from the Taj Mahal, while also managing to make your mouth water. The entire menu is also vegetarian, which is great for someone like me or a nice change of pace from meat drenched menus of other restaurants. Sagar, meaning “sea” in Hindi, is located nearby Tottenham Court Road, although they also have a branch in Hammersmith. It is one of the only restaurants in London to serve Udupi cuisine, which is the world renowned cuisine of South India. It’s not particularly flashy or overwhelming, but manages to stay simple while combining traditional and modern elements, all the way down to the decor of wooden tables with brass statues that grace the walls.

Although we were hungry, we had one appetizer to share, which was probably a good decision, considering the size of the dish. Unfortunately, I was so excited about the food, I forgot about looking at the menu to see what exactly it was that I had eaten, so I could keep it for future reference. I must point out that this forgetful trait I have during moments of awesome food, clothes, shoes or otherwise happens often. I’m going to say that it was more or less like a falafel, only it tasted much better. It was a great combination of different beans and vegetables and the deep fried shell made it tread into heaven territory. It also came with a fabulous coconut chutney that I could have drank on its own.

We both ordered dosa dishes, with some kind of vegetable concoction inside, I believe mine was aloo (potato) masala. It doesn’t really matter that I can’t remember, but all you need to know is that it was delicious. It came with that amazing coconut chutney and we ordered some cucumber yogurt on the side.

That yogurt came in handy because my dosa was especially spicy. The server warned me before he took my order but I thought it would be easy to handle. Note: Watching Bollywood does not make you immune to hot Indian spices. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

As you can see by our dishes above, we enjoyed the food (and the drinks!) very much. The food was great, the service was good, but there was something that we couldn’t put our fingers on that kept us from being able to fully enjoy Sagar that cold Saturday night in London. I guess the only way to describe it was the atmosphere. To the left of us we had a group of about six hip and trendy 20-somethings, who by the way, couldn’t all arrive at the same time, so every 20 minutes or so, one would show up and greet the others before sitting down. This didn’t help the fact that all the tables were EXTREMELY close to each other. If they were any closer, I would have been able to see other people’s nose hairs. That group was nothing compared to the over zealous and obnoxious German tourists who insisted not only on talking loudly and putting a plate they weren’t using on our table when we weren’t looking, but standing up and taking professional photos with a camera that probably cost well over $700. Needless to say that it was annoying and as I pointed out in my last post about Akari, the atmosphere of a restaurant is at times perhaps a bigger deal than the food.

Sagar
17a Percy Street
London
W1T 1DU
020 7631 3319