Gobind Chona opens second Oorja in Marylebone
Chef Jadhav Tukaram leads the kitchen at the 90-seat Northern Indian restaurant, opening November 1 with lamb shank nihari and a £21 lunch tiffin.
Oorja Marylebone, the second London restaurant from Starwins Group founder Gobind Chona, opens on November 1 with a 90-seat dining room split across two floors.
Chef Jadhav Tukaram runs the kitchen. He has more than 25 years in Indian restaurant kitchens, including spells at the Cinnamon Club under Vivek Singh, at Jamavar under Surender Mohan, and at Oudh 1722 under Aktar Islam.
The menu runs regional rather than generic. Lamb shank nihari slow-cooks until the meat falls from the bone. Lamb seekh kebab comes with mint chutney. Calcutta chilli chicken brings in the sharper, stir-fried style of Bengal's Chinese-Indian kitchens.
I wanted to bring that wonderful cuisine to a global stage
A smaller, neighbourhood version
The original Oorja sits on Shaftesbury Avenue, built for theatre crowds and pre-show covers. Marylebone is pitched differently: smaller, closer to the street, built for repeat weeknight bookings rather than one-off trips. Marylebone's dining strip already leans toward reservation-only, white-tablecloth rooms; Oorja is betting that Indian food belongs there too, priced for a Tuesday night rather than a special occasion.
The move mirrors a wider push by Indian chefs onto international menus this year, including a modern Indian kitchen opening in Kuala Lumpur.
A Sunday roast swaps the usual trimmings for Indian-spiced mains, among them a spice-roasted lamb rump. At lunch, the Express Lunch Tiffin costs £21 and arrives in a traditional stacked tiffin box, a format built for speed rather than ceremony.
Drinks range from lassis to a cocktail built on vodka, passion fruit sherbet and orange liqueur, a sign the bar is meant to carry its own weight rather than sit as an afterthought.
A family recipe box, scaled up
Chona traces the project back further than Shaftesbury Avenue. "I come from a hospitality family," he said. His parents ran a restaurant in Delhi specialising in Northern Indian food, the cooking he says he wanted to put "on a global stage."
Marylebone is now the third site under Starwins Group, alongside Oorja Shaftesbury Avenue and the pan-Asian Gura Gura. Whether the format travels past two postcodes is the next question Chona will have to answer.
