When I heard that Mowgli was taking over the old Cafe Royal (RIP) site, I was cautiously optimistic. I like Nisha Katona. She makes Indian cooking accessible, in an approachable, non-gatekeeping way. And the menu reads alright. Modern street food classics (ish). Dishoom-lite, like many Indian street food restaurants are nowadays. This is a good thing.
It was a long time coming, presumably for the extensive fit-out. You can tell. Fairy lights everywhere. Wooden swing benches (that don’t actually swing). It’s trying very hard. Inspired by a temple behind Nisha’s gran’s house. OK. I mean, it’s nice. In a romanticised, ‘is this gonna be style over substance’ kinda way.
It’s a theme which follows through to the menu. It’s not chole, it’s tea-steeped chickpeas. That sort of thing. Does it really need that much dumbing down in 2026? Or is that the private equity talking.
Much like Jamie’s ‘legendary’, ‘pukka’, ‘lush’, the menu is littered with adjectives. Some would call this fun, I find it a little overenthusiastic. Like, ‘order me! I’m dead nice, honest’. Indian street food is about the crash bang wallop of unfettered flavours, sights and sounds. But everything feels just that little bit palatable, sanitised, and accessible for those scared of pronouncing asafoetida. I sort of get why, I just didn’t think that was what Mowgli was.
And hey, it’s all alright if the food can do the talking. Starters, however, are a mixed bag.
Both bhel puri and pani puri (‘yoghurt chat bombs’) lack enough tamarind tang for me, with the latter missing its crucial tamarind water. They’re fine. ‘Angry Bird’ is a well-grilled and succulent chicken thigh. It’s a good ‘chicken and coleslaw’, but even with some mustard seeds, it feels a little out of place. Maybe my expectations were wrong.
Best of the bunch would be the Diwali Cauli (£9) — a whole cauliflower head topped like a chaat dish with sev, pomegranate, yoghurt and tamarind. Good veggie textures and balance of tangy and creamy.
Himalayan cheese toast, though, is really poor. A version of kejriwal, I’ve made this dish better — with ease — at home from the Dishoom cookbook. This was a single slice of plain white with some cheese. I can’t fathom how this escaped the test kitchen, never mind for eight quid.
Other starters include loaded chips (also, criminally eight quid). They shied away from a vada pav, surely the quintessential Indian street food dish. Instead bluffing with ‘chips in a roti wrap’. I’m sure some customers love them, but these compromises undermine much of the authenticity here. It’s pandering to bland. Blandering.
The mains/curries are so much better.
Black dahl is suitably slow-cooked, with a deep and intense flavour. It’s almost as good as Khai Khai‘s, which is praise. I licked the bowl. ‘Mother Butter Chicken’ again, doesn’t quite have the same cillit-bang as Dishoom’s Chicken Ruby equivalent, but it’s a fine take on the dish that will satisfy most palates. Its chicken is also nicely kissed by the tandoor.
Best of the bunch would be the paneer (mattar). For a tenner, this is rich with good depth of flavour and lots of paneer. Similarly, the house lamb is everything that you want it to be, in this case from a meltingly slow-cooked lamb curry. It feels truer to what I take from Nisha Katona’s shtick about Indian comforting classics. Not street food per se, but homely dishes. And this is where I’d advise you order from. You ain’t gonna get Bundobust level okra fries, or Dishoom’s vada pav. But the curries satisfy the right primeval parts.
All 26 Mowgli restaurants are pleasingly dog-friendly, hence our last couple of visits. As a pet-loving country, I think we just gotta embrace it.
Like anywhere else in 2026, sides and drinks and breads raise your bill disproportionately. Rotis are hard and dry and don’t feel like they’ve seen any ghee. Contrast this with a wonderful, freshly steaming from the inside out puri. Look at it! Drinks are run-of-the-mill: wines simply listed as ‘Shiraz’, for example, and £11.50 cocktails with the usual chilli additions.
A lassi with very fragrant mango was good — £5.80.
It’s far from a disaster. The tiffin lunch menu — £15, all curries — is where Mowgli makes its best case, and if you stick to the curry dishes you’ll have a nice enough time. It’s like ordering the pasta special at Jamie’s Italian: the thing they do best, done well enough.
The problem is I think it’s a little too late. Newcastle doesn’t need another accessible introduction to Indian food. Mowgli would make a bigger splash somewhere like Durham, where it wouldn’t be competing with independents already doing this better. Like Caffe Vivo and Pani’s were to Jamie Oliver’s flagship, you’ll find more joy at local independents Dakwaka, Khai Khai, or My Delhi. But much like Jamie’s, Mowgli is fine.
Contact: mowglistreetfood.com/restaurants/newcastle/
Address: 8 Nelson St, NE1 5AW
Opening times: Sun–Thu 11:30–22:00, Fri–Sat 11:30–23:00
Dishes: around £6–£16
Other info: always dog-friendly
