DESPITE BEING A LONG WALK from a high street in outer West London, The Scotsman is very busy for a drab Monday lunchtime. Before I open the door, I hear loud voices and music, at odds with its austere-looking Edwardian exterior. I pause, wondering what welcome I, a brown drinker, will receive in a locals’ pub unfamiliar to me.I needn’t have worried. Two old Asian boozers glued to their barstools nod when I approach, and the brown bartender smiles. The decor includes a large portrait of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh empire. The music isn’t pop but Bhangra, and a sign on a window proudly states “Authentic Punjabi Cuisine.” Shinda Mahal, the landlord, appears, checks the cricket score on the TV, and then chats with some regulars.Instead, it’s a table of white construction workers—eating spicy chicken lollipops and drinking pints of lager—who stand out as a visible, but welcome, minority here. The only thing missing is an actual Scotsman. (The name comes from the road: Scotts Road.)The Scotsman is one of the UK’s many desi pubs, run by Mahal for more than 15 years in Southall, a part of London with a high concentration of Asians (75 percent, per the last census). Desi pubs are Anglo-Indian boozers run by Asians, established a time when non-white Brits faced segregation. In desi bars, brown drinkers could safely play Bhangra music and eat Punjabi food after working grueling manual jobs.South Asians no longer face exclusion from pubs—which are so integral a part of British social life—but desi bars like The Scotsman remain, reflecting both the tensions and triumphs of a multiracial Britain. They provide a different experience to “English” spaces where white landlords serve traditional food and beer. In a typical desi pub, Asian culture is not just tolerated, but celebrated.
Source: The Triumphant Story of Britain’s Desi Pubs – Gastro Obscura
