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Hindoostane Coffee House

first Indian restaurant in the United Kingdom

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ5766176 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Hindoostane Coffee House, opened at 34 George Street, London in 1810 as the Hindoostane Dinner and Hooka Smoking Club, was an Indian restaurant, and the first of its kind in the British Isles. It was founded by Sake Dean Mahomed, a former captain in the British East India Company's Bengal Army. It closed in 1833, when Mahomed became bankrupt.

Its location is marked by a City of Westminster plaque, erected in September 2005.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Hindoostane Coffee House” as first Indian restaurant in the United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hindoostane, Coffee and House.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1810, 1833, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1810. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Hindoostane, Coffee and House providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hindoostane Coffee House”, the useful work is to connect “first Indian restaurant in the United Kingdom” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5766176. Authority coordinates are 51.517, -0.156. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1810, 1833 and 2005.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hindoostane Coffee House”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hindoostane Coffee House primary sources, Hindoostane Coffee House archive and Hindoostane research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hindoostane Coffee House”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hindoostane Coffee House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.