In December 2014, Barry visited Dishoom in Covent Garden to answer a compact but appealing question: could its bacon naan roll be one of the best breakfasts in London? The resulting film lasts just over three minutes, yet it captures the whole experience—from a quiet Sunday walk through Theatreland to the moment the warm naan is opened at the table.
A quiet Covent Garden morning
The film begins before the West End has reached its usual pace. Barry walks through Covent Garden, passing the Underground station and familiar red-brick buildings. A Theatreland street sign provides a neat marker for the setting, while the relatively empty pavements make the area feel very different from its busy afternoon character.
Dishoom’s Covent Garden restaurant appears across the road, its dark signage set into a pale stone frontage. By 2014 the restaurant had already become known for an all-day approach inspired by the old Irani cafés of Bombay, but this visit focuses entirely on breakfast.
The breakfast menu
Inside, Barry opens the understated Dishoom breakfast menu. His choice is the bacon naan roll, a dish that brings a British breakfast ingredient into a freshly baked naan with cream cheese, chilli tomato jam and herbs.
The film’s original description gives unusually useful detail. It records that each naan was baked by hand and to order in the restaurant’s tandoor. The smoked streaky bacon came from the Ginger Pig and was described as dry-cured with rock salt and Demerara sugar before being cold-smoked over oak chips. Those details explain why the roll was more than a quick bacon sandwich with different bread: every component had a deliberate texture and flavour.
Inside Dishoom in 2014
The dining room is shown in soft morning light. Dark timber, bentwood chairs, framed photographs and hanging lamps give it a warm, layered appearance. Barry films before the room fills, allowing the interior to register clearly around him.
This is also what makes the film useful as an archive. It does not present only a close-up of food; it preserves how the restaurant felt at breakfast in late 2014. Menus, interiors, recipes and prices can change, so the account should be read as a record of that particular visit rather than current ordering advice.
The bacon naan arrives
The roll is served on a patterned plate with a small metal cup beside it. At first, the folded naan conceals most of the filling. Its blistered, browned surface makes the bread look freshly cooked rather than merely warmed.
Barry lifts the top of the naan to reveal the streaky bacon, green herbs and glossy chilli tomato jam. The open view is the film’s strongest food image: crisp-edged bacon is layered generously inside soft bread, with the cream cheese and jam providing richness, sweetness and heat.
The tasting is deliberately uncomplicated. Barry’s reaction is positive, and the short running time suits the subject. There is no attempt to turn breakfast into an exhaustive restaurant review; instead, the film records one notable Dishoom dish clearly enough for viewers to understand why it attracted attention.
A small London breakfast archive
Ten years later, the film remains engaging because it captures an early moment in the wider popularity of Dishoom’s breakfast offering. It also reflects a Roberts London habit that runs through the archive: beginning with a walk through a recognisable part of the city, entering a particular institution and concentrating on the details that make the visit memorable.
The answer to the title’s question is necessarily personal, but the pictures make a persuasive case. Fresh tandoor-baked naan, oak-smoked bacon and a carefully balanced filling created a breakfast that was recognisably London while drawing on a different café tradition. Filmed on 14 December 2014, this brief Covent Garden visit preserves the bacon naan roll at the centre of the experience—and shows exactly what arrived on the plate.
