The Rise of Desi Pub Culture in Britain

The Desi pub is one of Britain's great culinary inventions. Born in the Black Country in the 1960s when Punjabi families bought the boozers nobody else wanted, it married the British pub — pints, pork scratchings, big screens — with the food, music and warmth of South Asia.

Today that culture has gone national. From the Red Cow in Smethwick to Glassy Junction in Southall, from Bradford to Hounslow, the Desi pub has become a third space — a place where uncles play cards, students watch the cricket, and the karaoke playlist runs from Kishore Kumar to Stormzy.

Baithak is part of that lineage, but with a Bollywood spin. Same warmth. Same big screens. More glitter.