★ Michelin · Indian Seafood · Marylebone
By Monty Khas, Anonymous Critic. Pays every bill.
Every Mumbaikar with a seafood memory has some version of the same story: a crowded table, a plate of crab swimming in butter, pepper and garlic, and fingers that smell of it for the rest of the night. Trishna, on a quiet stretch of Blandford Street in Marylebone, borrows its name and spirit from the Fort-district Mumbai institution that made that crab famous, and then does something rather more refined with it.
The JKS group opened Trishna in 2008, and in many ways it's where their story began. It earned a Michelin star in 2012 and has kept it every year since.
The room
Of all the group's restaurants, Trishna is the most low-key: baby-blue paneling, antique mirrors, marble tabletops, simple wooden chairs, and doors that open onto the street on warm days. A light refresh in 2025 kept that neighborhood feel intact. The pavement tables are the best seats in summer, so ask for one when you book. Groups of up to a dozen can take the Koliwada Room for a private dinner. It's the sort of place where you can have a serious meal without anyone performing seriousness at you.
What to eat
Start with the aloo chaat, a cult dish of ratte potatoes, masala chickpeas, tamarind and sweet yogurt: tangy, crunchy, cooling and gone in moments. Then go straight for the Dorset brown crab, cooked with coconut oil, black pepper, garlic and curry leaf. It's the signature for good reason, British shellfish meeting Mumbai technique in a sauce you'll want to eat with a spoon.
Hariyali bream comes off the tandoor bright with green chili and cilantro, with a smoky tomato kachumber alongside. Tandoori prawns are juicy and charred, and the Kerala prawn curry is the creamy, coconut-rich counterpoint. If someone at the table isn't a seafood person, the duck chutney seekh kebab and the cashew and pepper chicken will keep them happy, and gongura lamb, sharp with sorrel leaves in a nod to Andhra cooking, is the meat course that surprises people most. The beef short rib served on a chickpea dosa is a modern classic worth asking about.
The Goan prawn biryani with pink peppercorn raita is the rice to share. For a first visit, add the Taste of Trishna bites, which walk you up and down the coast: Koliwada-style fried squid and shrimp, nandu varuval (a Tamil-style crab fry), coconut and corn tikki and badami broccoli. Together they show how different the cooking of India's coastal communities really is.
Vegetarians are well covered too, with paneer tikka anardana, scattered with pomegranate, and those corn and broccoli bites leading the way.
Drinks
The bar punches well above its size. The aamra negroni and the shimoga gimlet are both beautifully balanced and spiced with restraint, and the wine list, shaped by co-owner Sunaina Sethi, is one of the smartest in London for matching chili, coconut and citrus. Desserts aren't really the point here; save your appetite for one more round of crab instead.
Before you go
Book well ahead for weekend evenings. Weekday lunch, especially on the pavement, is the gentler entry point and the most relaxed way to experience a Michelin-starred kitchen in London. Service is relaxed and knowledgeable, happy to steer you toward the day's fish or a wine that can handle heat.
What makes Trishna quietly radical is its insistence that Indian seafood is a cuisine in its own right, not a side menu. In most London Indian restaurants, fish is an option; here it's the point. If Quilon is the case for Kerala and the Malabar coast, Trishna is the case for Mumbai and the Konkan, and London is lucky to have both making their arguments a short cab ride apart.
The Quick Fix
What to order: Aloo chaat; Dorset brown crab with pepper, garlic and curry leaf; hariyali bream; Taste of Trishna bites; gongura lamb; Goan prawn biryani; an aamra negroni
Pricing: Upscale. Lunch and the pavement tables are the relaxed way in.
Best for: Seafood lovers, quiet date nights, Marylebone lunches, and anyone who has done Quilon and wants the Mumbai contrast
How it compares: London's best Mumbai-style seafood; a Konkan counterpoint to Quilon's Kerala; more relaxed than Gymkhana; the JKS restaurant where it all started
See where Trishna ranks: The Best Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Restaurants in London: Our Top 10 for 2026
The food was always this good. We're just paying attention.