Oudh 1722, London

Birmingham’s biggest restaurant opening this year is in London. Our biggest culinary export, a two Michelin wielding chef by the name of Aktar Islam, has opened a restaurant in the big smoke called Oudh 1722. And before you think about Aktar’s cooking, get this preposition out of your head; it is nothing like Opheem. They might share the same garam masala recipe, they might use the same customer intel, but that is it. Whilst Opheem is very much a two star restaurant that uses flashes of the subcontinent to push through some very classical technique, Oudh 1722 is very much an Indian restaurant, with kebabs and curry and ultra expensive black leg chickens from France. The food focuses on Awadhi cuisine, that slow cooked, courtly food of Lucknow. It is typically more melancholy than the rest of India, lower in chilli, more gentle perfumed spice than abrasive heat. Awadhi cuisine assumes that pleasure need not be loud, that richness need not be heavy, and that the highest luxury is often…