Haldiram's has made its entry into London's restaurant scene with the opening of its first UK outlet at 19-20 Irving Street, Leicester Square, with videos showing long queues outside the restaurant quickly gaining attention on social media.
The 3,000 sq ft outlet, which opened in June 2026, can accommodate 120 diners indoors along with 20 heated outdoor seats. While this marks Haldiram's first restaurant in the United Kingdom, the brand's packaged snacks and sweets have already been available across British supermarkets for years.
The company has also operated a production facility in Southall, west London, since 2018, supplying Indian sweets to customers in the UK and Europe.
The Leicester Square restaurant features a menu of popular Indian dishes, including choley bhature, a chickpea curry served with fried bread, pao bhaji, a Mumbai-style vegetable preparation, and raj kachori, a crispy shell filled with chaat ingredients. The outlet also includes a retail section with a sweets counter and shelves stocked with Haldiram's packaged products.
The opening attracted significant attention online after a video showing a large crowd waiting outside the restaurant went viral. A text overlay on the clip claimed that visiting the new outlet had become a shared weekend activity for Indians in London.
The footage showed customers from different backgrounds standing in line to enter the restaurant, though many social media users connected the crowd size with London's Indian community. Haldiram's responded to the viral post with a comment referencing both Delhi and Leicester Square.
The reaction online was mixed. Several users welcomed the expansion and called for the brand to open outlets in more countries, while others recommended specific products such as khatta meetha. Some users pointed out the contrast between the stereotype that Indians are generally hesitant to queue and the long, orderly lines seen outside the London restaurant.
The launch also faced criticism from some commenters. A few questioned whether the restaurant offered anything significantly different from the packaged and frozen Haldiram's products already available in Indian stores, arguing that the outlet did not add much value.
Others compared the queue outside the Leicester Square restaurant with crowds seen at a bakery in Gurgaon, while some suggested the popularity reflected limited entertainment options in London rather than only the appeal of the brand.
Founded in 1937 as a small dessert shop in Bikaner, Rajasthan, by Ganga Bhishen Agarwal, Haldiram's has grown into one of India's biggest sweets, snacks and restaurant companies. The brand now operates in more than 80 countries and runs over 200 restaurants across north India, along with an outlet in Dubai.
Rhea Agarwal, a third-generation member of the founding family, is overseeing the company's expansion into the UK and European markets. She has described the London opening as a major step towards establishing Haldiram's as a household name beyond India.
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