Hichki Indian Restaurant

You're walking down Whitechapel Road, past the market traders and the old textile warehouses, and you duck into Hichki. It's unpretentious in the way the best neighbourhood spots are—no weird fusion nonsense, no Instagram plating. What you get instead is the kind of Indian food that makes sense: properly spiced curries that build rather than burn, tandoori that's properly charred, and the sort of service that remembers you're there for a proper meal. The room's warm and busy without feeling like you're eating in a nightclub, which honestly puts it ahead of half the curry houses in East London that confuse volume with atmosphere.