The India Club’s ‘stairway to heaven’

THERE are many ways to heaven,” the critic and broadcaster Ian Nairn wrote in 1966.

But for anyone who enjoys the kind of quirky sensual experiences he chronicled in his classic architectural guide Nairn’s London, there are increasingly few. From the Stock Pot to Gaby’s Deli to the Gay Hussar, the last remnants of the old West End are rapidly disappearing.

Next month, they will be joined in the graveyard of affordable dining relics by a venue that has fought on longer and harder than most. Six years after its landlord first sought eviction so it could redevelop its prime location on the Strand, the India Club is finally set to close.

It will bring more than seven decades of history to an end, destroying the last physical remnant of the India League – the London-based campaign for Indian independence founded by St Pancras borough councillor and future Indian defence minister VK Krishna Menon.

VK Krishna Menon

For anyone who’s taken the slow trudge up the unassuming staircase on the Strand, what’s so special about the India Club is that it’s a place where time has stood still. Furniture and fittings in the first-floor lounge bar and second-floor restaurant date from the 1950s.

So do many of the recipes on offer – which differ from your standard curry house fare. Is there anywhere else in London, for instance, that an order of bhajis will get you a plate of battered chilis with coconut sauce?

These normally exceed my spice threshold, but when I braved the order to accompany a large gin and tonic in the bar last week, the stronger taste was one of impending loss. Not just of history, but of future potential, too. The club’s cultural offerings have only increased in recent years: in the adjacent lounge room, which I’ve hired out three times for parties over the years, a film screening was taking place.

As Indian MP Shashi Tharoor, the son of one of the club’s founders, said when the closure was announced, the club has been “home away from home” for “students, journalists and travellers”, who would find “a convivial atmosphere to meet and maintain friendships”.

There’s an old-days charm too to the chaotic noises you’ll hear from the kitchen, and the refusal of the staff to compromise with modern-day customer service expectations.

Card payments are now accepted, but always seem frowned upon.

An acquaintance who complained about the presence of egg shells in his curry some years ago was curtly informed: “It’s traditional.”

The restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin once enquired if the bread “was ever homemade”, and was told by the waiter, with a shrug: “Sometimes.”

On my recent visit, however, the crispy parathas tasted fresher than ever before. Rather than sticking to my standard order of keema peas and rice, a friend and I branched out to a lusciously green spinach dhal and a piping hot brinjal curry, washed down with a discounted bottle of Côtes de Gascogne from the nearby supermarket.

Though the bar downstairs has plenty of beers on offer, a bonus of the India Club has always been its corkage-free bring-your-own-booze policy.

Normally I’d be satisfied with a pleasant bus ride home on a full stomach. But on the landing outside the restaurant, the India Club’s stairway to heaven continues. The building is, after all, marked “Hotel Strand Continental” on its signage, and so I booked in overnight, taking a single room on the fifth floor. It resembled the most basic of student halls, and there was a clientele to match.

Accommodation at the hotel

In the dormitory next door to my room, a bare-chested man lounged behind the open door, remaining in the same position every time I passed over a period of three hours. My stay cost me a princely £55, plus a £5 returnable deposit for the key.

I awoke suddenly in the small hours, preoccupied with the thought of never returning. It’s unlikely that the boutique hotel long planned by landlords Marston Properties will ever be within my budget, or include any kind of atmospheric dining experience.

I dressed and headed down to the Strand, thinking that the pedestrianisation of what was once a rather unseemly stretch has no doubt made development more desirable.

It was deathly quiet by Somerset House, but less so as I approached Charing Cross, where students and other assorted revellers spilled out of McDonald’s and onto the curbs.

As I climbed back up the stairs, probably for the last time, I wondered whether this generation would ever find its own India Club – and if the developer bubble will ever burst.