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Event Journal Entries

Vaisakhi

Vaisakhi, a day marked across India by people of many faiths, is celebrated in the Punjab as the start of the new Harvest. It falls on the 13th or 14th April depending on the calendar for that year.

Celebrate Diwali with Dishoom

This year, on Wednesday 8th November, you are warmly invited to join us at The Steel Yard from 7pm until midnight for a night of dancing and deliciousness. Our friend, the creative marvel Almass Badat, has curated a most diverting array of South-Asian performers to help you dance the night away under the lights of the main auditorium.

Festive goings on

Christmas Revellers rejoice! For we have a whole host of festive fun lined up that is taking place up and down the country. Kindly read on to learn what jovial affairs are going on in your city for the all-important business of diary marking.

Diwali at Dishoom is back!

This year, on Thursday 20th October, we will celebrate the festival of light at Studio Spaces in Wapping. A night-time affair filled with poetry, live music and bespoke dance performances curated in partnership with our good friend Sweety Kapoor. You may also join us in our cafés for first-class seasonal specials.

Eid al-Fitr

The Celebration of Breaking Fast

The festival of Eid al-Fitr (literally “the Celebration of the Breaking of the Fast”) marks the conclusion of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month where restraint and discipline must be practised.

Chand Raat

The culmination of Ramadan will bring with it Chand Raat (the night of the moon), an evening of great excitement and unity. It’s the eventide or moment the first crescent moon of the month is observed, which marks the end of the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, a period of fasting, prayer and reflection, and the start of Eid, the beginning of great festivities.

Holi celebrations

The origins of Holi

There’s nothing quite like Holi. Literally, you have to see it to believe it. All over India, hordes of ordinary people seem to lose their collective minds, abandon all sense of decorum and go a bit wild on the streets, chasing and pelting each other with gulal (coloured powders). As the vibrant powders are unleashed on enthusiastic – or unsuspecting – revellers, social boundaries are blurred with colour and for that one crazy day, anything goes.

Valentine's with Dishoom

On any given day (but particularly on Valentine’s) we want your hearts and bellies to sing. Howsoever you choose to join in the love-filled celebrations this year, we wish you the dreamiest day and hope you can drink (chai) deeply and wrap your busy teeth around plenty of Dishoom classics at home. Do read on to indulge in some inspiration.

Christmas at Dishoom

Christmas is one of our very favourite times of the year, and its jovial spirit is upon us. Lights are twinkling, the scent of mulled wine is wafting through the air and many parties are afoot. Feast in our cafés, join us for an evening of Christmas carols, enjoy your favourite Dishoom delights in the comfort of your home, or allow our Store to cater for your party and gifting needs.

Diwali at Dishoom

In the days and weeks before Diwali, the excitement and gaiety flickers through Bombay like electricity. It is with that same sense of excitement that we announce we can once again bring friends and family together for a first-class partee. With almost two years since our last get-together, it brings unsurpassed joy to be able to finally share the particulars of our 2021 Diwali celebrations. 

Our Diwali party

Under a canopy of stars and lights, we welcomed our biggest-ever line-up of exceptional South Asian talent to Dinerama for our Diwali celebrations.

Women in Indian cinema

We’re delighted to be partnering with the brilliant HOME on their ‘Not Just Bollywood’ film season as a part of their year-long programme ‘Celebrating Women in Global Cinema’. The season runs from Wednesday 11th September – Wednesday 2nd October, 2019 and champions women filmmakers...

377 Scrapped

6th September, 2018 will be marked in Indian history as the day when love won. At 11:30am, the Supreme Court scrapped Section 377 – the notorious law that criminalised homosexuality.

Our Eid Party

For us and many of our team members, Eid is a really happy, special day; a day where people come together with friends and family and celebrate joyfully with food  – lots and lots of food!

Christmas Carols

Cheer-filled carol singing, mince pies, roasted chestnuts, mulled wine and Dishoom House Chai... a proper Christmas carolling.

The Knot of Protection

Fear; we’ve all felt it. Fear for ourselves, fear for others, fear for the future. It’s a really powerful and unsettling feeling.

Our Holi Parties

In spring 2016, two thousand of you joined us for our biggest and best Holi celebrations yet. We all partied together with open hearts, and open minds – it was wonderful to be part of it.

Parsi theatre personalities Sam Kerawalla, Shireen Hirjee and Villoo Panthaky

Laughter in the Cafè

Where it stands says so much about a café. Built to hug Bombay’s busiest street corners, iconic restaurants still left gracing a few such prime plots were once considered inauspicious by superstitious sections of the Hindu community.

Dishoom Diwali Festival

We have always loved sharing the magic of Diwali with our friends and families.

Rise

On sunny Saturday 4th July 2015, The Crossing (inside the atrium of the Granary Building at King’s Cross) became an oasis of calm.

A Special Diwali Recipe

Naved has even kindly shared his own recipe for the Chilli Garlic Crab, so – if you can’t make it to in to see us – at least you can share in our celebrations at home!

Holi at Dishoom

Holi party in King's Cross

Cast your sins into the fire. Throw colours with random strangers, and random abandon. Laugh freely and joyously. Dance. Laugh again.

Cabinet of curiosity

The London Design Festival

In September 2013, at Dishoom Shoreditch, we’re hosting a ‘cabinet of curiosity’ curated by This is Provenance as part of the London Design Festival.

Holi 2013

Play Holi with Dishoom

A glorious, exuberant, colourful, joy-filled mess. Everyone from the tiniest little children to the most elderly aunty-jis had a fantastic time.

Hello 2013

Goodbye 2012. Hello 2013.

2012 strikes us as a year of contradictions. Yes, it was another year of economic turmoil, of grim declarations from a glum Chancellor about “austerity measures” and “belt-tightening”.

Chilli Standoff

The Chilli Standoff

Chilli. Mexican. Or maybe Tex-Mex. Not really Bombay, or indeed Indian, at all.

Diwali 2012

Diwali – the Festival of Light

Bombay. This magnificent yet (at times) mad “maximum city” is heaving with people of all backgrounds, races and religions.

The bond of Raksha Bandhan

Siblings can be frustrating, can’t they? Know-it-all elder sisters. Pesky little brothers, bullying big ones.

Ramadan

Fasting, feasting – Ramadan & Eid

Last week, millions of Muslims around the world embarked on the month-long cycle of fasting, prayer and reflection that is Ramadan – the holiest month of the Islamic calendar.

Christmas turkey at Dishoom

A Bombay Feast at Christmas

Christmas Turkey. Now be honest. Does the thought of it fill you with excitement? Does it make your taste buds stand to attention?

Diwali At Dishoom

Diwali draws near again, and with it fireworks, colour and celebrations.

Dishoom Chowpatty Beach Bar

On the Southbank (May 13th – Oct 4th 2011)