I had one of the best curries at The Great Indian gastropub

What was once The Prince Alfred is now The Great Indian, a gastropub joining the likes of The Tamil Prince in serving excellent curries in a setting that still resembles a London boozer.

Since the British insist on drinking beer with their Indian cuisine the combination is a no brainer.

The Great Indian replaced The Prince Alfred in Marlborough Road Archway. (Image: The Great Indian) Smartly decked out in dark green paint and tiles with copper finishes, it still looks like a pub from the outside and has a few stools for casual drinkers.

But its main business is serving up Chef Jolly’s food, and arriving on a Thursday evening we found every table in the main space and rear dining room packed with happy people.

Aman Dhir, who has expanded his Hackney take-away to this bricks and mortar venture, has wisely kept the prices accessible.

The Great Indian’s breads and dishes from the tandoor oven are superb. (Image: The Great Indian) Starters are £7.50-£12.50, mains £10.50-£14.50 and breads and rice £4. At a financially unsettling time, that’s great value for this standard of cooking.

We started with a creamy mango lassi and iced Aspall’s cider while munching the house made smoked poppadums with ‘Tiranga Chutney’.

This turned out to be a neat pot layered in the colours of the Indian flag with tomato relish at the bottom, a mango yoghurt, then a fresh mint dip on top.

It’s a flying start to a meal which only got better with a quartet of deep fried crispy gunpowder chicken wings dipped in chili sour cream, and a trio of puffy samosas in a ‘Chole Chaat’ of spiced chickpeas, scattered with crispy chaat, pomegranate seeds and yoghurt.

The cooking is by Chef Jolly and the venture comes from Hackney take-away owner Aman Dhir. (Image: The Great Indian) It just the right balance of sweet sour and spicy leaving just the right fire in the mouth.

Moving onto mains we shared a Tandoori Paneer Tikka Masala and Punjabi lamb curry with notes of cinnamon, cloves and bay.

The portions of meltingly soft cheese and the lamb aren’t huge but the saucing is knockout – up there with the best curries I’ve tasted.

And by the time you have mopped them up with a superb garlic nan and crispy butter paratha you will be full.

By now we had switched to a mocktail and cocktail – mine a tangy meld of gin, mango and prosecco, while my teen enjoyed an ice-cold palate cleanser of mint, lime, ginger and passionfruit.

It set us up for dessert, a frozen rose-shaped kulfi flavoured with cardamom in a strawberry coulis, and a dreamy, creamy baked Doi of sweetened curd scattered with biscuit wafers.

Our smiling waiter gave impeccable service and the atmosphere gave off neighbourly good vibes – not surprising, as anyone would surely love to have a Great Indian like this on their doorstep.

The Great Indian is at 139, Marlborough Road, N19.