Is The Balti House the oldest Indian restaurant in Nottingham?

Yes. The Balti House has traded at 35 Heathcoat Street in Hockley since 1968. The Nottingham Post described it as the city's oldest Indian restaurant in its edition of 22 December 2012.

Is The Balti House halal?

Yes, the kitchen is halal. There is also a large vegan and vegetarian menu of around a dozen mains.

Can you bring your own drink to The Balti House?

Yes. The Balti House is BYOD — you are welcome to bring your own drink.

How close is The Balti House to the Motorpoint Arena?

About five minutes on foot. The restaurant is at 35 Heathcoat Street in Hockley and opens at 5.45pm, which suits pre-game and pre-gig dining.

Does The Balti House do takeaway, and what are the collection times?

Yes. Takeaway and collection run Monday to Thursday 5.45pm to 10.00pm and Friday to Saturday 5.45pm to 10.30pm — the restaurant itself stays open later. There is 10% off collection orders before 9pm and 20% off for students, on orders over £20. Orders take roughly 25 minutes. Call 0115 947 2871. Delivery is available through Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Takeaway prices differ from the restaurant menu.

Patro is The Balti House's signature dish, built on khaliber 'roots' spice and cooked in cast iron. The restaurant believes it is the only kitchen in the UK serving it.

The Balti House — Nottingham's Oldest Indian Restaurant, Est. 1968

A Bangladeshi family, a Nottingham institution

We've stood on Heathcoat Street — named for the man whose machines made Nottingham lace — since 1968, the city's oldest Indian restaurant. A Bangladeshi family cooking in the British-Indian tradition, we've always put flavour and balance ahead of heat. Three generations of the same families still eat here, so the menu runs from the gentle, fragrant dishes that made our name to the bolder, spicier plates we've grown into since.

The kitchen is Bangladeshi and has never pretended otherwise. Our owner Sabbir — everyone calls him Sam — played league cricket, welcomes most tables himself, and remembers what you ordered last time.

We cook for flavour before heat. Want it mild? Say so. Want it painful? We do that too — and if it isn't on the menu, ask anyway.

1968

Where it began

The doors open in Hockley — a Bangladeshi family cooking curry on a street named after a lacemaker. A traditional clay tandoor follows in 1977 and is still turning out the breads today.

The 1970s

The Golden Seventies

The Balti House finds its feet as Hockley's local, and the recipes that still anchor the menu take shape. Long tables, deep red cloths, a proper licensed bar along the back wall — and a room that has never really stopped filling since.

Look at who's round that table. Nottingham was still arguing with itself about who belonged where; here everybody just ate.

A mixed group of diners raising glasses around a long red table at The Balti House in the 1970s — A table mid-toast, some time in the seventies.

The 1980s

The Electric Eighties

Busy nights, a full room, a reputation spreading well past the neighbourhood — and closing time treated as a rough guide.

A curry at three in the morning was nothing remarkable. Through the seventies, the eighties and well into the nineties, the room would still be going in the small hours and so would the kitchen. Half of Nottingham's late shift ended up here eventually.

Nine staff crowded behind the Balti House bar under a Merry Christmas banner in the 1980s — Behind the bar, under the Christmas banner.

Balti House staff sharing plates of curry and rice at a long table decorated for Christmas

The staff curry

When the last order is away, the kitchen cooks one more dish — for itself. It has never been written down and it is never the same twice: whatever was good that day, cooked the way the chefs cook at home rather than the way a menu asks for. Ask anyone who has ever worked a service here and they'll tell you the same thing — it is the best food that comes out of this kitchen, and you cannot order it.

The 1990s

The Buzzing Nineties

By now a Forest player in the dining room raised no eyebrows at all. Teddy Sheringham, Terry Wilson, manager Frank Clark — they came in, ate, and were left alone, which is probably why they kept coming.

In 1995 a television crew filmed here for “The Restaurant Show”, and the cameras spent most of the evening in the kitchen rather than the dining room.

As seen on TV

Six men in the Balti House in 1991 — three staff in patterned waistcoats, one balancing a black balti dish on a waiter’s head, and three guests — 1991, and a balti dish worn as a hat. From the Balti House archive, captioned by the family as Forest’s Teddy Sheringham and Terry Wilson with Wales international Dean Saunders — alongside Sabbir, Salem and Mani. The leaflet being held up reads “the first of its kind in Nottingham.”

Balti House chefs in whites beside a cameraman filming in the kitchen, 1995 — Cameras in the kitchen, 1995.

Sabbir Hossain in a suit beside a cameraman and chefs in the Balti House kitchen, 1995 — Sam and the crew, mid-shoot.

Brass 1990s Balti House Tandoori card advertising a balti-style set meal

Still got one of these?

Our brass Balti House Tandoori cards went out in the nineties, promising a balti-style set meal at “around £6.50 per person.” The price has moved on. The card hasn't — bring one in and it's still 10% off, as it always was. Not with other offers, mind.

Late 1990s → 2000s

A home from home for the Bangladesh team

Trent Bridge is twenty minutes away, and for years the Bangladesh national cricket team treated the Balti House as their canteen whenever a tour brought them to Nottingham. Not a one-off photo opportunity — a standing arrangement, tour after tour. They'd arrive straight from the ground, still in training kit, and watch the rest of the day's play on the wall while they ate.

Over the years that has meant the captain, the players, and the coaching staff — Australian Jamie Siddons, Bangladesh's head coach from 2007, among them. One earlier visit brought the captain, several of the side, and a young Mohammad Ashraful, who in 2001 had become the youngest cricketer ever to score a Test century, aged seventeen — a record he still holds.

And not only Bangladesh. The Sri Lankan national side took the place over too — the restaurant closed to the public and booked out for the team.

Bangladesh cricketers in green training kit filling plates from a buffet in the Balti House dining room, staff serving alongside them — Straight from the ground, still in kit, the whole squad in for dinner.

Sabbir Hossain with the Bangladesh cricket captain and other national team players in the older Balti House dining room — Another visit — the **Bangladesh cricket captain**, a future team captain, and other national team players.

Sabbir Hossain at the bar of The Balti House with three members of the Bangladesh cricket squad — Bangladesh squad members at the bar with Sam.

Bangladesh head coach Jamie Siddons in team tracksuit with Sabbir Hossain at The Balti House — Sam with Bangladesh head coach **Jamie Siddons**.

A large group photographed outside The Balti House beneath the Tandoori Restaurant sign — A later visit by the **Bangladesh national cricket team** — players and staff, out on Heathcoat Street after dinner.

Trent Bridge sends us all sorts.

Sri Lankan cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya photographed with Sabbir Hossain at The Balti House — Sam with Sri Lanka's **Sanath Jayasuriya**, taken the night the restaurant was booked out to host the Sri Lankan national cricket team.

Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood photographed with Sabbir Hossain at The Balti House — Pakistan all-rounder **Azhar Mahmood**, in for dinner.

2012

Currying favour — Restaurant of the Year finalist

The Nottingham Post names the Balti House one of six finalists in its Indian Restaurant of the Year competition, from 16,063 votes cast — and puts the city's oldest Indian restaurant on the page in print.

“I'm over the moon with the news. The restaurant has been open for 45 years and has been supported by the people of Nottingham every step of the way.”
Sabbir Hossain — Nottingham Post, 22 December 2012

Nottingham Post page of 22 December 2012 naming The Balti House an Indian Restaurant of the Year finalist — Nottingham Post, 22 December 2012 — tap to read.

Newspaper cutting of Sabbir Hossain holding a tandoori platter at The Balti House — “Popular: Sabbir Hossain at The Balti House.”

2013

A passport to Peru — and the fusions that didn't last

Sam has never been able to leave the menu alone. Over the years this kitchen has run fusions of all kinds — including a long Indo-Chinese run, cooked out of respect for the Chinese families who have traded alongside us in Nottingham for as long as we have. Most of those experiments came and went.

One didn't. In September 2013 Sam travelled through Peru, ate at Mantra in Lima and came home with two dishes from its head chef. The Creamy Jalfrezi and Creamy Rogan Josh went on the menu as an experiment and never came off — the only fusion our customers refused to let us drop. They're still cooked nowhere else in the city.

Sabbir Hossain standing at Machu Picchu, Peru, September 2013, with the mountains behind him — Sam at Machu Picchu, September 2013 — the trip the creamy dishes came home from.

Game nights

Five minutes from the arena

The Motorpoint Arena is a five-minute walk down through Hockley, and on a game night you can tell. Panthers shirts start filling the room from about six, eat properly rather than grabbing something on the way, and are gone in time for face-off.

Same before a gig or a show. We open at 5.45pm precisely because of it — and if you tell us what time you need to be out, we'll get you out.

Two customers eating curry at The Balti House, one wearing a Nottingham Panthers ice hockey jersey — Panthers shirt, plates full, well before face-off.

Today

The three-in-the-morning crowd bring their grandchildren

The room has had its facelift — glass frontage, proper lighting, air conditioning, a kitchen that would be unrecognisable to whoever lit that first tandoor in 1977. What hasn't changed is who walks through the door.

Nobody stays till three any more. They bring their families instead — the same faces from the eighties, with their children, and lately their grandchildren, at the same tables.

The Balti House dining room laid for service — white linen, leather chairs and a full glass frontage onto Heathcoat Street — The room, laid and waiting.

Sabbir Hossain standing at the head of a long table of laughing guests — Sam still gets to every table.

A family around a window table at The Balti House with karahi curries — A family at the window.

Three customers smiling over curry, rice and Cobra beer at a Balti House table — Regulars, plates nearly done.

Six diners sharing curry, naan and karahi dishes at a Balti House window table — Six round the window, naan going fast.

Summer 2025

Prom night

The newest generation to take over the whole room — in black tie, on the pavement, outside the same door their grandparents queued at for a three-in-the-morning curry.

A large group in prom dresses and black tie posing outside The Balti House on Heathcoat Street, summer 2025 — Prom night, 2025. Fifty-seven years after the doors first opened.

The Balti House

A Bangladeshi family, a Nottingham institution

Fifty-eight years, one address

Where it began

The Golden Seventies

The Electric Eighties

The Buzzing Nineties

A home from home for the Bangladesh team

Currying favour — Restaurant of the Year finalist

A passport to Peru — and the fusions that didn't last

Five minutes from the arena

The three-in-the-morning crowd bring their grandchildren

Prom night

Dishes you'll find nowhere else

Patro Only in the UK

Creamy Jalfrezi Lima, Peru

Creamy Rogan Josh Lima, Peru

Naga Hottest

Full vegan menu Vegan

Restaurant menu

Starters

Chef's Special Mains

International Taste — UK × Peru

Tandoori Clay Oven

Tikka Specials

Regional Dishes

Biryani

Fish

Vegetarian Mains

Vegan Mains

Rice & Breads

Sides & Sundries

Set Menus

Takeaway menu

Starters

Popular Main Dishes

Chef's Specialities

Regional Dishes

International Taste — UK × Peru

Tandoori Dishes

Tikka Specials

Fish Specials

Biryani

Vegetarian Mains

Vegan Mains

Side Dishes

Rice, Breads & Sundries

Set Menu

Rated 4.7 by 684 diners

Book a table

Find us

Opening hours