London institution
Luxury hotel flattens historic India Club: Legendary restaurant has to close
View of the lounge area at The India Club in London
© Instagram: IndiaClubLondon
For more than 70 years, “The India Club” stood for Indo-British friendship, cultural exchange and culinary delights. Now a luxury hotel is displacing the legendary London restaurant. It is the loss of a historical gem.
It was the India League, an organization that was formed in the 1920s to campaign for Indian independence, that founded the club after independence was achieved to promote Indo-British friendship. The founding members included India’s first Prime Minister and his wife Penelope “Penny” Knatchbull, also known as Countess Mountbatten of Burma. That was more than 70 years ago.
The India Club: meeting place with history
“The India Club” quickly developed into a cultural meeting place where contacts were made and those seeking advice found a listening ear. The India Club was a place of familiarity in a foreign country, where it smelled and tasted like home, where people looked at familiar faces and understood each other because their tongues were in time.
Inconspicuous, easy to miss and out of date – “The India Club” in the Hotel Strand Continental was never exclusive and yet almost exclusively an insider tip for those in the know. For almost 30 years, Yadgar Marker ran the club and looked after the space like a time capsule. The interior of the club, which doubled as a restaurant and lounge bar, had not been changed since the early days. On Sunday the portraits of the Indian freedom fighters Mahatma Gandhi and Krishna Menon will be removed from the walls. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of the India Club,” Yadgar Marker told Hindustan Times. The India Club will open to guests for the last time on September 17th.
“Big loss for London restaurant world”
“It breaks your heart,” says Phiroza Marker, who started helping out at the club when she was ten and most recently ran it with her father. Since its opening, The India Club has been a second home for first-generation immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and a place of community for British-Indian groups. The club will also leave a culinary gap on the Thames. “Another huge loss for the London restaurant world. The India Club has been there for 70 years and is now being pushed out by city developers,” said gastro critic Jay Rayner on X.
The Sword of Damocles had been hanging over the club for a long time. The end was already threatened in 2018. At that time, it was Westminster City Council that ensured its continued existence by rejecting the relevant real estate company’s application to convert the hotel. The historical value of the building was too important, it was said at the time. The plan to have the building listed and thus preserved failed. More than 26,000 people supported the petition.
Sources: The India Club, Hindustan Times, The Guardian, evening standard,DailyMail