Where to eat contemporary Indian food in Hong Kong: restaurants Leela, Anglo-Indian Rajasthan Rifles, Prince and the Peacock and Nine One offer fresh takes

Chicken Madras is a staple at the recently reopened 96-year-old Jimmy’s Kitchen in Central, but its presence on the menu wasn’t always a given. As the story goes, the zesty dish was created by Indian chefs in the 1940s as a staff-only meal. However, the owner’s wife insisted it be introduced to diners, who continue to savour it to this day.

The history of Indian cuisine in Hong Kong dates back to the mid-19th century, when Indian soldiers, traders and civil servants were among the earliest settlers of the British colony, bringing with them their rich culinary traditions. Indian restaurants catered not only to the Indian community, but also to British expatriates and locals who had developed a taste for South Asian spices and flavours.

One of the stalwart Indian establishments still operating in Hong Kong is the long-standing Gaylord Indian Restaurant, in Tsim Sha Tsui, which has been serving authentic Indian cuisine since 1972. And despite being styled as a British pub, The Chinnery, at the Mandarin Oriental, in Central, has been serving Indian dishes for longer still, dating back to its opening in 1963.

Today, the city boasts more than 200 Indian restaurants, running the gamut from casual curry takeaways to fine-dining. But Indian cuisine in Hong Kong has long been virtually monolithic – with little representation of the hundreds of regional cuisines that make up the culinary tapestry of India.

This homogenisation is largely due to the dominance of north Indian flavours in Hong Kong. Dishes such as butter chicken and saag paneer, as well as naan and roti – all staples of Punjabi and Mughlai cuisines – have become synonymous with “Indian food”. It’s a narrow representation that overlooks the diversity of Indian cuisine, from the coconut-infused curries of Kerala in the south to the fiery pork dishes of Nagaland in the northeast.