Green Chilli Cafe

The Green Chilli Café offers an option that always interests me: Curry served tapas style. Who doesn’t want the possibility of trying a little bit of a lot of different dishes? Many of the curries are available as either a main or a tapa but I’d definitely go for the latter because there are a lot of great flavours here worth exploring, including a long list of vegetarian options.
During my most recent visit we ordered chicken pakora, khumb hara pyaz (a gingered mushroom dish), lamb dhaba gosht, chicken sharabi and lamb ra ra gosht, plus a Peshwari naan. Five tapas-​sized dishes turned out to be plenty for the two of us and we spent the meal bickering about which one was the best (it’s the lamb ra ra gosht, anyone who says otherwise is a fool).
I really like the atmosphere of this restaurant too — the staff put you at your ease and will cheerfully make recommendations and suggestions (like, «you probably don’t need both rice and naan if you’re ordering 5 tapas, I’d suggest just getting one of the two»).
We noticed during our visit that they offer a «tapas madness» option on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which seems like an economical way of working our way through the rest of the menu. Since we’re determined to do exactly that, I guess we’ll be back soon.

This was my 3^rd visit here and it certainly wont be the last.
What i love about the place is that 90% of the tapas menu is gluten free which is amazing. The deal we had was 3 tapas dishes for £9.95 and they certainly do not scrimp on the portions.
I had the chicken pakora, chicken korma and an indian sweet chilli chicken. I ordered a side of rice too. The dishes were beautiful and we did not have to wait long for our dishes.
We ordered a side of poppadoms and spiced onions to share whilst we waited for our dishes. My only little gripe and what denies this a 5 star review — is that i wish the portions of spiced onions were bigger. I love them so much!
I cant wait to return here. Brilliant food and service!

Have been to this (mainly tapas-​style) Indian restaurant many times and enjoyed it, so to fend off the back-​to-​work blues we decided to go here for dinner. They have ‘Tapas Madness’ on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings — choose from a selection of tapas-​sized starters and curries for £2.50 each. If you find this menu too restrictive you can order additional full priced dishes from the main menu as well, but it was fine for us and we ordered 8 dishes between three of us plus rice and garlic naan. We had poppadoms and spiced onions while we waited for our food to be cooked as well.
I had most of the tadka dal to myself and it was lovely warming comfort food — soft lentils in a gently spiced onion and tomato gravy. The curry tapas dishes are deceptive in size and I’ve learned from past experience that one is enough for me! The rice portion is a little on the small side for sharing though. I tried some of the saag too which made a delicious dip for the naan bread, plus some mushroom pakora (a good sized portion — about 8 pieces) and some of the namesake green chilli pakora which I love (though it’s less fiery than it used to be and no longer comes with a shot of lassi or a warning from the waiting staff!).
Good choice for a reasonably inexpensive and tasty meal.

Green chilli is somewhere I would always walk by and think that smells incredible but would actually never think of planning ahead to go!
Massive inside with two levels and modern which I was not expecting at all. It was a Wednesday evening but it was mobbed I actually think we nabbed the last table.
The menu is quite cool, tapas style. Tasty onions and popadoms as an appetiser And we shared a range of dishes which included haggis fritters served with a onion marmalade, samosas with mash potato. For mains we had three types of tapas curries mixture of Chicken, lamb and chickpeas. All were very delicious and served with rice and we had a couple of nan breads one garlic and the other Peshawar.
The staff were friendly but I would say it was a Little slow. Price was very reasonable for the amount of food we ate. I would definitely return.

Deco wise Green Chilli has a reasonably modern vibe with cool framed pictures on the walls and funky patterned booth seating. The main dining area is located up a set of stairs which wrap round a huge sparkly chandelier and an assortment of indian musical instruments on the walls which I loved. We spent a couple of hours in the restaurant and found it a comfortable enjoyable environment.
The staff were attentive… quick to bring drinks and happy to explain what dishes were and make recommendations. Zero issues with the friendly smiley staff.
The menu is the really exciting element of this restaurant to me… you can basically get all the main dishes in tapas sized portions. Brilliant!!!
To start our meal we ordered a few starters to share. The Haggis Fritters in spicy batter served with red onion marmalade was probably my favourite dish, my only slight criticism would be that it was the marmalade that made the dish but the portion was quite small. Still a brilliant dish tho.
We also tried Jodhpuri Samosa which is baked pastry filled with mashed potato and green peas mashed in indian spices and Chandri Chilli Chicken described as deep-​fried chicken dices marinated in garlic paste, chilli flakes & corn flour. Both of these dishes were also excellent. The samosa was flavourful and packed with filling and the chicken was tender and the sauce had just the right amount of heat for me… not to hot but a nice kick.
For our main we finally settled on 5 different main dishes…
My favourite was definitely the sweet ‘n’ sour chicken Chasni. It was perhaps a little light on actual chicken but the sauce was easily the best Chasni I have ever eaten it was light, sweet, cream and tasted so good I was practically drinking the sauce.
My next favourite dish was probably the Chana Masala (I think it was called!?!) it was a beautiful chickpea dish in a tomato sauce. I can’t remember exactly what was in it but I can only describe in as a buttery lush bowl of goodness.
We also tried the Chicken Tikka Labbabdar — Chicken tikka pieces simmered in tomato onion based sauce, with a touch of butter & cream and the Chuza Taka-​Tak — Pieces of chicken tikka cooked in onion & peppers infused in a makhni base, I enjoyed both of these dishes and would happy order both again. The chicken was juicy and moist and the sauces were packed with fragrant spices which had my mouth-​watering the minute they were placed in front of us.
Lastly we also tried the Ra Ra Ghost which is lamb dice & lamb mice cooked in authentic indian spices to a medium strength, this was probably my least favourite dish I just found it slightly bitter to taste so wasn’t really to my palate.
To accompany our curry we enjoyed a light fluffy naan bread and fried rice which were both good accompaniment to showcase the beautiful sauces .
To top off the evening our bill came to an incredibly reasonable £66.05 which for 3 of us I thought was excellent value for money.
I would say this meal would be in my top 5 indian restaurant experiences in Glasgow and am already looking forward to my next visit soon… hopefully!

Even if I were a world renowned Soprano (of the operatic variety, not Mafioso) I could not sing the praises high enough for this restaurant! Booked in for a Groupon deal (you know how I love my meal deals!) as a wee birthday dinner for a friend, we chose the five tapas and wine offer for £20.
On arrival we were seated immediately, had the deal explained, and offered a choice of red, white or rosé. We took the poppadoms and spiced onions, which I thought might be complimentary, as in some restaurants, but alas, they weren’t. We looked at our choices for our curry tapas and opted for 1 chicken, 2 lamb and a veggie dish, and a meat. When they arrived the colours alone spoke volumes. Each dish looked different from the other, and not in that food colouring flow chart type way. There was depth, consistency, texture, and most importantly FLAVOUR! The lamb keema (mince) was devine, the saag with halloumi was decadently buttery, the lamb curry was melt in the mouth, and the chicken Labrador (it’s not really called that, but it’s close) was grrrrreat, and finally our haggis pakora was just amazing. We added rice and Nain, which you definitely need to accompany any curry.
Wine wise we chose the house white, and it washed down our meal perfectly.
The staff were very friendly and chatty, with good humour. There was a bit of difficulty with the card machine, but everything was done to rectify it before I had to venture out in the rain to an ATM.
Needless to say I cannot wait to go back and eat A La Carter, or even order a cheeky takeaway.

We’ve eaten a few times here with family who are all curry aficionados. We do have dissent in the ranks though as some feel this is their favourite indian restaurant in Glasgow, and others (including me) consider Green Chilli Café a close second to Mother India’s Café along the road. It is a point of much discussion and we now take it in turns to visit both :)
Each time we’ve eaten here we’ve went for the tapas option, and I’ve tried probably about every dish on the menu. One of my favourites is the kadai paneer which is really fresh and tasty. When you have this alongside peshwari naan and veg pakora you’re on to a winner :)
I do find here a little lacking in atmosphere as it has quite an eclectic layout of tables, and I dislike the toilets being so far from the tables upstairs. However I’ve enjoyed every meal I’ve had here and will be sure to return when it’s Green Chilli Café’s turn again.

Green Chill Café. To put it simply, their tapas menu is great. Big thumbs up from me and the guys I work with. Three well sized, extremely tasty dishes, ten quid a pop? Well in.
It’s our go-​to place before a work night out. Mainly because they get it just right. Portion sizes are generous but don’t leave you feeling like you’ve ate your own body weight in pakor-​y goodness. Talking of which, their Haggis Pakora is bangin’. Easily one of the best I’ve had in Glasgow (not that I’m a connoisseur of pakora by any stretch).
The staff are great, always on hand to help you with your choices and they will even enjoy a wee chuckle at your expense should you order a less-​hot curry option. That aside, they are non intrusive but there when you need them.
The food itself? Well we usually opt for three dishes each; one starter-​esque one, and two curries. The curries are great; authentic, fresh and brimming with flavour — I couldn’t ask for more. An accompaniment of rice and pashwari paratha between two is more than enough — and again, top marks for both.
The only downside to Green Chilli Café is that it’s a bit off the beaten track, and in terms of restaurant size it could be bigger/​better illuminated as it sort of reminded me of sitting in my grandparents living room at times.

Did we like? Yes we did — kinda!
I thought to myself… «your Irritable Bowel Syndrome’s not gonna’ forgive you», but my stomach stood firm and took as good as it got! Green Chilli Café’s primarily an Indian tapas restaurant, but we plumped for a couple of standard mains and a couple of tapas dishes to start — Lamb Saag, Chicken Patia, Haggis Fritters and Chicken Chapli Kebab. Everything was fairly decent, but not excellent — a tad over salted and no better or worse than other curry houses. On the plus side our Paratha accompaniment was sublimely buttered and layered, but have to say they skimped on the boiled rice and fatso here had to order more :-(
However, service was excellent! You can tell when a waiter is switched on. We asked for a Litre of Sparkling water to go with our meal, but no ice in our glass. He immediately suggested a bottle from outside the fridge. Seems like a standard thing to do, doesn’t it? In my experience — no :-/​Cleanliness was also apparent adding to the pluses.
In general though my intestines are still intact with no sign of a sulphuric gaseous attack. I’ve still got the sight in both eyes and my tongue doesn’t feel like it’s been hammered with a chisel. That, along with my shirt being covered in curry, must mean I enjoyed myself — pretty much.

after a second visit to a place that i thought was a wee hidden gem in the West of Glasgow i was sadly disappointed of the service standard and food quality acquired on this occasion, mabey it was possible that my discerning judgement was clouded due to my illness on the night or the time frame allocated on eventual booking 6pm (4−6pm slots given on a
voucher…Birthday present being used)…there were no starters on this menu, main and desert… no alternative to jiggle the starter dessert or coffee, s. pose this is where they boost the the voucher discount bak up again… downer if you dont do dessert, anywayz moving swiftly… starter/​chicken pakora was hot but bland in seasoning to both the batter and chicken, had to season m, sel… main was Lamb Bhuna and some sort of Chicken Chasni type dish my Son got… lamb was dried out and overcooked (good sign of being cooked/​re heated too many times over! ¾days cooked) the Bhuna sauce was watery as opposed to being rich/tomato…y and thick and no sight of a tomato garnish to the sauce either… think i may have got this for the salad aligned to the pakora… lol…my Sons chicken main was tough and bland and the sauce in flavour also, i think that was the first i’ve ever witnessed him apply salt to his food…(Airborne fitness God) we ordered our two desserts (with the the intention of a slide taking place WHEN they arrived… and my Son obtaining both! and me getting a lift home in return for the done deal) also a house filter coffee and a half pint of iced tap water… the coffee came in 5min very weak in strength, i attempted to return this but all the waitress staff were being delegated by the management to attend the incoming evening guests and settling them with their drink and started orders…25min we waited for 2xCOLD desserts… pure insult felt@time, enough was enough and got our things and went up to square on the bill… as i wasn’t up to challenging such dreadful service on this occasion an my Son had to return to work i humbly paid the bill and went on our way, the manager was clueless and that flustered that he probably couldnt work out why i was paying at the reception and not on a side plate… Green Chilli’s Café moto…“cooked to… order”…more like…“re heat to order… but dont know about your ORDER”…or who knows mby book after 19:00 hr… never on this one!

I used to frequent this restaurant many years ago when it was called The Spice of Life but since then it has changed a few times (I think) and it is now the Green Chilli Café. I’ve heard that it is still associated with the Harlequin/​Ashoka chain of Indian restaurants but I did not guess this from their menu as they have a very different feel/​take on the Indian dining experience compared to the other Harlequin restaurants I have visited.
They specialise in Indian tapas here, similar to Mother India’s Café just along the street from GCC. For me personally this is a very good idea as I often see multiple dishes on a menu that I would like to try but I often don’t want to take the risk of it not being to my taste… here you can order 2 or more smaller, tapas style dishes to get a feel/​taste of what you like. Most of the tapas size dishes are about £4.65 or £4.95, now I did think that maybe this is a bit expensive, especially if you want to try more than 2, however once my tapas dishes came I realised that you do actually get more than I anticipated for your money. Still I would probably prefer a wee but less & it be a bit cheaper but that’s purely because I would like to be able to sample MORE dishes at once. Also I thought the veggie dishes were a tad overpriced too ~ being only 30p cheaper than the meat dishes, this again put me off sampling them over the meat ones as I felt I would get more value for money ordering meat instead of veggie. It’s a bit of a bummer as I love Indian veggie dishes. Hey ho.
We chose our meals from the A La Carte menu as the only deal they had on that evening was one that was a bit expensive for us. For starters we had the Mixed Pakora ~ this was really good. 2 pieces of chicken, veggie & haggis pakora. Never had haggis pakora before but it was really delicious. I’m glad they included it in their mixed pakora as otherwise I would have never had the guts (Haha! Guts; get it… sorry) to try it (not being a massive {non-​veggie} haggis fan). The 2 sauces the pakora came with was lovely too. Yums all rounds from us.
After we had our starter the (very lovely) waitress cleared away our plates and asked us if we were ‘ready’ for our next course ~ I thought this was quite a nice touch as sometimes you (and some people) like to take a wee break between courses and other times you’re just totally Hank and want your food asap. As we were both megatron hungry so we said ‘Aye’ and so quite swiftly after along came our main course/​s.
My boyfriend ordered his usual ~ Chicken Tikka Masala (with boiled rice) main course size (£8.95) and I ordered 2 tapas sized dishes; 1 dish being one of my favourite Indian dishes (and I actually did a wee ‘Whoop!’ of delight when I seen it on the menu) Chicken Saag Wala and for my 2^nd dish I thought I would be adventurous and try the Desi Lamb, also I had boiled rice & we ordered a garlic ptoora ~ never tried this before either but they don’t serve the usual Nan bread or Chapatis here because apparently (I overheard the waitress explaining this to another customer) they don’t have a tandoor oven; hence nae Nan bread. Interesting. The ptoora was nice ~ more akin to a chapati than a nan bread.
The Chicken Tikka Masala was lovely ~ I really liked it but sadly I knew that this would mean my boyfriend wouldn’t like it as much… it was a bit too hot for him. It wasn’t as creamy as most other CTM’s but again, this is why I preferred it. My 2 dishes were absolutely gorgeous ~ the chicken & lamb were both melt in the mouth and the Saag Wala was just totally yummy (my boyfriend also agreed and vowed he would choose that next time we came) spinachy goodness. I felt like Popeye eating it! Check oot my guns! Haha. The Desi Lamb was also really really tasty ~ just the right amount of chillies & spice, I would most definitely have that again.
All in all I really enjoyed all the food we had here. The only things that let the place down a wee bit was 1) The toilets were a bit manky ~ just needed a good tidy up & freshen up I feel and 2) they sat us right between 2 other couples in a busy part of the restaurant when there was seating away from the crowd which we would have preferred… I know this is what restaurants do (as we were all near the window) but when a restaurant is quiet enough it’s nice to maybe be given a choice of where to sit.
All the staff and waitresses were lovely & even the take-​away lady downstairs said goodbye to us as we were leaving.
We will definitely be back. SO many dishes on that menu I want to try! Nom.
(I heard that there used to be more vegan/​veggie friendly dishes here but now the menu has changed… this is a shame as it would’ve made this particular Indian restaurant stand out from the crowd. I hope they reinstate the more vegan-​friendly menu as with Glasgow being named the most vegan-​friendly city it would make sense to include more of these particular dishes on their menu. Here’s hoping…)

Update to my earlier rave review is that they no longer have a vegan menu, and last time I was in they were actually pretty unhelpful. I’ve heard it’s changed management again since then though. Just don’t want any vegans to be relying on my previous review!

Visited here with another couple as we had recieved a Groupon-​type voucher. The place was pleasant enough I suppose, but the temperature was a bit erratic and on a Friday night it was empty by 10pm. The food was good but not on a par with Mother India’s café (just along the street) or Thali in Merchant City.

Green Chilli Café is easily overlooked. Walking from Dumbarton Road you have to pass the giants of Mother India and Ashoka to get there.
We had a Living Social deal for this place, otherwise we would have overlooked it too.
It does a choice of either tapas or large dishes so you can get the best of both worlds. Our deal was for 8 tapas and a drink each. Only after choosing and ordering did we realise rice and bread was not on the deal so we had 8 curries and sides! It was a table of plenty I can tell you!
We tried:
Chicken Pakora
Fish Pakora
Chicken Kofta
Chicken Korma
Butter Chicken
Lamb Gosht
Punjabi Fish Goan Curry
Calamari
and also had a parathi bread and a boiled rice.
All the dishes were lovely, not over keen on the Chicken Kofta but hadnt had it before so I couldn’t tell you if it was bad by Chicken Kofta standards.
Service good and prices were good outside of the deal we had.
It loses a star because of some bad disco lighting which looked like we were either at someones 50^th in a village hall or being attacked by snipers at various points.
If you are ever down that way and theres a queue at Mother India I’d give it a bash.

What a place absolutely first class!!! excellent choice on the tapas menu the ‘butter chicken’ has to be tasted to believe
tuesday and wednesday from £1 per plate.
Staff very friendly without being obtrusive — all in all an excellent night out

This was a lovely evening out for my birthday and 11 friends. The staff were very friendly and helpful (even bringing out my birthday cake, lighting the candles and providing cutlery/​crockery for us), the food (tapas style and most dishes only a pound on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) was great value and very filling.
We had half a rice and half a ptoori (a regular sized nan to those from outside Glasgow!) between us and around four dishes each from the tapas menu which was more than sufficient to fill us all up. The beer wasn’t too dear either, around £3.50 for a pint.
If you’re thinking about going here just do it, you won’t regret it. The place is styled lovely inside too, none of that 80’s carpet on the walls or anything like that…