A tasting menu is a multi-course meal in which the chef selects and sequences every dish, served in smaller portions at a fixed price. Rather than ordering à la carte, diners are guided through a curated culinary journey, typically five to nine courses, designed to showcase the kitchen's best flavours, techniques, and stories. The French term is menu dégustation, meaning the careful, unhurried appreciation of taste. At Colonel Saab in London, this experience takes the form of Memsaab's Tasting Menu, a culinary journey through royal India priced at £90 per person, shaped by decades of travel, memory, and love for the subcontinent's extraordinary regional cooking.
The Meaning of a Tasting Menu: What to Expect
The defining characteristic of a tasting menu is that the chef, not the diner, makes the choices. You arrive knowing the price and roughly how many courses are coming. Everything else is in the kitchen's hands.
A typical tasting menu moves through five to nine courses, each served in a portion sized to complement what came before and what follows. The meal might open with a warm, aromatic broth or a single vivid bite designed to set the tone. From there it builds through lighter starter dishes, into more substantial plates, and eventually arrives at a dessert course that brings the whole narrative to a close. A palate cleanser is often served between the starters and mains, giving the diner a moment of pause before the more assertive flavours arrive.
The pacing is deliberate. A tasting menu is not a fast meal. Expect two to three hours at the table, sometimes longer. That unhurried rhythm is part of the point. Each course is introduced, often explained, and given space to be considered before the next arrives.
A fixed price covers all courses. Many restaurants offer an optional wine or cocktail pairing alongside the food, with each drink chosen to complement a specific course. At Colonel Saab, Memsaab's Tasting Menu is £90 per person, with wine pairing at £60, cocktail pairing at £65, and Champagne pairing at £105 for groups of six or more.
The tasting menu differs from a set menu or prix fixe in degree. A set menu typically offers two or three courses with some element of choice within each. A tasting menu offers no choice at all, or very little, and is usually longer, more elaborate, and more deliberately constructed as a single, unified experience.
Course by Course: What a Tasting Menu Dinner Looks Like
Understanding what each course is intended to do helps you arrive at the table with the right expectations, and helps you follow the story the kitchen is trying to tell.
Memsaab's Tasting Menu opens with Rasam, a South Indian tomato and lentil broth served with mini idli and puffed pastry bites. It is warm, aromatic, and quietly confident, a dish that asks nothing of the diner except to slow down and pay attention. This is followed by Marwad's Raj Kachori, a spiced fried potato shell filled with trio sauce, pomegranate seed boondi, savoury crisp, herbal jam, and black lime chaat masala. It is vivid, textured, and unmistakably rooted in the street food culture of Rajasthan. From the very first two courses, the menu makes clear that this is not a single-region story. It is a journey across India.
The middle courses are where the kitchen shows its range. For the third course, guests choose between two dishes. The Kandhari Paneer Tikka, seasoned cottage cheese stuffed with prunes and pomegranate in tomato, garlic mustard salsa, demonstrates the vegetarian depth of Indian cooking, bringing fruit, dairy, and smoke into the same plate. The Anglo Indian Chicken Chop, a Madras-spiced pulled chicken cutlet served with salad and tomato raisin relish, carries the particular, layered history of British and South Indian culinary exchange.
Before the main courses arrive, a Raspberry Sorbet is served as a palate cleanser. It is a considered pause in the sequence, clearing the palate and preparing the diner for the more assertive flavours ahead.
The main courses in a tasting menu tend to be the most generous in portion and the most assertive in flavour. Guests again choose between dishes. Old Delhi's Famous Lamb Curry, minced lamb curry with cumin potato, dal makhani, steamed rice, and butter naan, is the kind of dish that speaks of long preparation and deep familiarity, rooted in the slow-cooked traditions of the Delhi kitchen. The Nadan Fish Curry, nadan fish curry with beans poriyal, dal makhani, steamed rice, and malabar paratha, brings the coastal flavours of Kerala to the table. For those eating a vegetarian menu, the Falahari Kofta Curry, beetroot and lotus kofta curry with beans poriyal, dal tadka, steamed rice, and tandoori roti, demonstrates that vegetarian Indian cooking is not a compromise but a complete culinary world of its own.
The dessert course closes the sequence with a choice between two dishes. The Dark Chocolate Silk Cake arrives with thandai crumble, candy floss, and fresh berries, a dessert that brings together the richness of dark chocolate with the floral, spiced notes of thandai, a traditional North Indian drink. For those who prefer something lighter, Kochi's Coconut Pannacotta offers coconut and black pepper panna cotta in vanilla mango sauce with baked coconut croutons, a dish that carries the coastal flavours of Kerala all the way to the final course.
Each dish arrives named, explained, and contextualised. You are not simply eating. You are being told something.
The Colonel Saab Tasting Menu: A Journey Through Royal India
Colonel Saab opened its first restaurant in the Grade II listed Holborn Town Hall in 2021. The building, originally a public library opened in 1894, was restored with warm colours, brass, handcrafted chandeliers from India, and museum-quality antique maps and artefacts gathered from across the subcontinent. In 2023, a second restaurant opened on William IV Street, moments from Trafalgar Square, bringing the same depth of design and the same kitchen philosophy to a larger space lit by ornate Firozabad chandeliers.
Roop Partap Choudhary founded Colonel Saab as a tribute to his parents and to the culinary inheritance their travels created. The restaurant reflects a family legacy of hospitality spanning more than three decades, shaped by the same commitment to heritage, quality, and warmth that has defined the Choudhary family's approach to welcoming guests.
Head Chef Sohan Bhandari joined Colonel Saab after more than a decade of experience in India and the Middle East, earning multiple awards and developing an expertise in modern Indian cooking that balances authenticity with genuine innovation. Memsaab's Tasting Menu is not a static document. It evolves with the seasons, with new ingredients, and with the continuing story of the kitchen's development.
At Colonel Saab, Memsaab's Tasting Menu is priced at £90 per person. For those who wish to enhance the experience, a wine pairing is available at £60, a cocktail pairing at £65, and a Champagne pairing at £105 per person for groups of six or more. Set menu options are also available at £65 and £85 per person for guests who prefer a shorter experience. Memsaab's Tasting Menu represents the fullest version of what the kitchen offers: the most courses, the most range, and the most complete telling of the story that every plate is part of.
For those celebrating a special occasion, both the Holborn and Trafalgar Square restaurants offer private dining rooms. The Holborn location accommodates up to 60 guests across two elegantly designed private spaces.
Is a Tasting Menu Worth It? What Makes the Experience Special
The honest answer is that it depends on what you want from a meal. If you want to eat quickly, choose exactly what you feel like, and leave in under an hour, a tasting menu is not the right choice.
But if you want to understand what a kitchen is actually capable of, a tasting menu is the only format that shows you the whole picture. An à la carte menu lets you eat one or two dishes well. A tasting menu lets you follow an arc. You experience how a chef thinks about flavour progression, how courses are sequenced to build and then resolve, and how a single culinary tradition, in this case the cooking of India, contains more variety and depth than any single dish can convey.
For Indian cuisine specifically, the tasting menu format has a particular value. The subcontinent is home to dozens of distinct regional cooking traditions, many of which are unfamiliar to diners in London. Memsaab's Tasting Menu moves from the broth warmth of a South Indian Rasam to the street food vibrancy of Marwad's Raj Kachori, through the slow-cooked depth of Old Delhi's Famous Lamb Curry to the coastal lightness of Nadan Fish Curry, and finally to the rich conclusion of Dark Chocolate Silk Cake or Kochi's Coconut Pannacotta. It covers more ground, more honestly, than any single-region menu can. It is the most complete introduction to the breadth of Indian cooking that a restaurant can offer.
There is also the matter of attention. A tasting menu asks you to be present in a way that ordinary dining does not. The pacing, the explanations, the progression of flavours and textures: all of it rewards engagement. Guests who arrive curious tend to leave with a genuinely altered understanding of what Indian food can be.
Memsaab's Tasting Menu is worth it because it is not trying to impress in a generic fine-dining sense. It is trying to tell you something specific: about a family, a country, a culinary inheritance. That specificity is what makes it memorable.
Practical Information: Booking the Colonel Saab Tasting Menu in London
Colonel Saab has two central London locations.
The Holborn restaurant is at Holborn Town Hall, High Holborn, moments from Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, and the British Museum. It is well suited to business dinners, pre-theatre dining, and celebratory evenings. The Trafalgar Square restaurant is at William IV Street, moments from Charing Cross, the Strand, and the National Gallery, and serves guests travelling from Piccadilly Circus, Mayfair, Westminster, and Waterloo.
Memsaab's Tasting Menu is priced at £90 per person and is available at both locations. Pairing options are available alongside the menu: wine at £60, cocktail pairing at £65, and Champagne at £105 per person for groups of six or more. Set menu options are also available at £65 and £85 per person. The full dining experience runs to approximately two and a half hours. Guests with dietary requirements, including vegetarians and those seeking halal-appropriate options, are well catered for. The kitchen is experienced in accommodating common dietary needs with advance notice at the time of booking.
Private dining rooms are available at both locations and are suitable for groups celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, corporate events, and other special occasions.
Book the Tasting Menu at Colonel Saab
Colonel Saab offers a luxury Indian dining experience at two central London locations, each one built around the idea that food tells stories worth listening to. Memsaab's Tasting Menu is the fullest expression of that belief.
Reserve your table at Colonel Saab Holborn or Colonel Saab Trafalgar Square online, or call 020 8016 6800. For group bookings and private dining enquiries, contact reservations@colonelsaab.co.uk.
FAQs
What is a tasting menu?
A tasting menu is a multi-course meal where the chef selects every dish at a fixed price. Typically five to nine courses, it takes diners through a curated culinary journey. The French term is menu dégustation.
How many courses is a tasting menu?
Most tasting menus offer five to nine courses. Memsaab's Tasting Menu at Colonel Saab guides guests through multiple courses, from a South Indian Rasam to the dessert choice of Dark Chocolate Silk Cake or Kochi's Coconut Pannacotta.
How long does a tasting menu take?
Between two and three hours. Each course is introduced and given time before the next arrives. Plan your evening accordingly.
What is the best Indian tasting menu in London?
Memsaab's Tasting Menu at Colonel Saab, £90 per person, at Holborn Town Hall and Trafalgar Square, inspired by the travels of Colonel Manbeer Choudhary and executed by Head Chef Sohan Bhandari.
Is a tasting menu worth it?
Yes. It is the most complete way to experience a chef's full range in one sitting. For Indian cuisine especially, where regional variety is vast, it offers depth and breadth a standard meal cannot match.
