High end Indian restaurant chain Dishoom is planning on opening its first bar in Brighton.
The new venue in East Street will be called Permit Room – a name Dishoom already uses for its drinks menu.
It has already successfully applied for an alcohol licence for 31a and 32 East Street – previously occupied by Socialite restaurant and before that, Cath Kidston.
Now it is asking to vary the conditions to put a new bar on the ground floor, create a ground floor terrace and a roof terrace for dining.
A spokesman said: “Permit Room will be an all-new offering; a love letter to the vibrant spirit of Bombay’s popular permit rooms, beer bars, and drinking holes… watch this space.”
The Permit Room name comes from the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1959. The menu says: “Since 1949, and to this very day, Bombay has been under a state of prohibition.
“A personal permit is required by law if one is to ‘continue to require foreign liquor and country liquor for preservation and maintenance of my health.’
“Set apart from a family room, there is a special place which has come to be known unofficially as a Permit Room.
“Herein liquor can be sold and imbibed, but only for the goodness of one’s health.”
The restaurant, famous for its bacon naan rolls and black daal, already delivers to most of the city from the Deliveroo “dark kitchen” in Hove.
Its Brighton licence, which the application said is for “a restaurant with ancillary bar and external terrace (subject to relevant consents)” allows it to open until midnight, with alcohol sales from 8am.
No planning permission has yet been applied for regarding signage etc.
Dishoom launched in Covent Garden in 2010, and now has six branches in London and others in Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
