When You Really Should Have Heeded The Warning…

Tantra describes itself as “elevated” Indian cuisine, and the front of the building has the word “PROGRESSIVE” emblazoned across it, maybe as a warning to hang on to your pants, because these guys really mean business.

Ooh, I'm off to Edinburgh shortly for a break, is this an establishment to look up, despite the warning, I wonder?  

It’s not an eatery or street-food joint; rather, it is “a streetery”. It’s also a cocktail bar that serves the likes of a Queen of the Dragon, brimming with Midori, Cointreau, prosecco and something called “perfume myst” that comes with a lime-flavoured replica dragon’s tail poking out of a cloud of dry ice. Tantra loves dry ice, and it never knowingly misses an opportunity to open a cloche and waft some of the stuff your way...

Oh. Maybe not. 

The place is as cavernous as an old-school The Hitman and Her-style “niteclub”, painted mostly black and with an interior design theme fever-dream that could be more accurately described as Funkadelic-era George Clinton. There are flashing neon blue lights, patches of plastic greenery hanging from the ceiling, paisley wallpaper and mirrored walls.

Sounds delightful, doesn't it? Usually that sort of theatricality is hiding a deficit in the kitchen department. Is this at least an exception to that rule?  

Less modern streeteries might at this point have offered some poppadoms, but Tantra furnished us with a “crisp board … with progressive regional dips”. This turned out to be seven shards of poppadom in various colours, one of them luminous green, that were plated on blobs of pickle and raita, so some of them had gone soggy.

That's a 'no' then... 

 

“Tantric lamb cutlets” came next, and were so called, I think, because the chops had had a long, hard session under a hot grill and were extremely well done. Like almost everything at Tantra, they were served on a black plate with a flamboyant garnish...