Three curry awards in five weeks: where Newcastle’s Indian cooking is winning

Lamb shank rogan josh, slow-cooked with Kashmiri spices, is the £24 centrepiece at a Quayside curry house that has been open since 1981. In August it was named the best in Newcastle. Within five weeks, two more award bodies had picked Newcastle winners, each a different restaurant from a different decade. Taken together they make the case that Indian cooking is what this city now does best when it goes out to eat.

All three awards are industry or public-vote prizes, not critics’ verdicts, so treat them as a shortlist rather than a ranking. Here are the three winners, the order at each, and two more places that would have been worthy.

How we chose: the 2026 English Curry Awards, Northern Curry Awards and British Restaurant Awards winners for Newcastle, plus two restaurants from those shortlists and the main local guides.

Simla

Ashraf Ali opened Simla on Side in 1981 as a fast curry house, and his daughter Shelly Muktadir relaunched it as a smarter dining room in 2016. The English Curry Awards named it Best in Newcastle in August. Order the lamb shank Kashmiri rogan josh, cooked in its own bone-marrow juices, and start with the gunpowder blast prawns at £8.50.

39 Side, Quayside · lamb shank rogan josh £24 · closed Mon, dinner only · book

Chakh Dhoom

The newest of the winners opened on Osborne Road in Jesmond at the end of 2023, calls itself “an Indian Street Food carnival”, and was named Newcastle Restaurant of the Year at the Northern Curry Awards in September. The name means taste and smoke. Begin with papri chaat, served cold, at £7.95, and come at a weekend if you want lunch, because Monday to Thursday it opens at 4pm.

Osborne Road, Jesmond · papri chaat £7.95 · from 4pm Mon–Thu · book

My Delhi

Brothers Elahi and Shah Amin opened My Delhi on Clayton Street in May 2019, with graffiti-style art and a screen showing Delhi’s streets, and in September it won Best Restaurant in Newcastle at the British Restaurant Awards. That was a public vote, and the shortlist it beat included Solstice and Cook House. The order is the Delhi railway butter chicken.

Clayton Street, city centre · open daily from noon · book

Khai Khai

On Queen Street near the river, Khai Khai made the Northern Curry Awards shortlist rather than the winners’ list, and it still has the city’s most quoted dish. Gordon Ramsay called its butter chicken the “curry of his life”, and Alan Shearer told staff at the restaurant’s birthday party that it is the place he brings visitors. The Old Delhi butter chicken, smoked chicken tikka in tomato sauce with herb butter, costs £15.95. Sabrina Ghayour’s pick on a visit in August was the chickpea chaat, which she called “INSANELY good”.

Queen Street, Quayside · Old Delhi butter chicken £15.95 · book

Sachins

Sachins has cooked Punjabi food on Forth Banks for 43 years, and Bob Arora, a regular before he became the owner, took it over in 2000. This year it won a Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice award, and it is where to eat before a show at the Utilita Arena nearby. Order the gunpowder chicken to start and Murgh Malabar, chicken in coconut milk with curry leaves, to follow.

Forth Banks, near Central Station · closed Sun · book

If you only have one night, go to Simla for the long view and Chakh Dhoom for where things are heading.

Checked October 2026.