Indian Hut Restaurant

Butter chicken is the plate Indian Hut leads with, and it sets the terms for everything that follows: tender chicken marinated in tandoori spice, then simmered in a tomato-and-butter sauce rich enough to carry a basket of naan on its own. It is the safe first order and the dish a Grimsby table keeps coming back to. The menu around it runs much larger — curries, tandoor specials, biryanis, chaat and a full slate of Indo-Chinese plates — but the butter chicken is the centre of gravity, the plate that explains this downtown Mountain Street kitchen before the rest of the menu fills in its range.

Most orders start with the appetizers, and the Hot Appetizer Platter is built for exactly that — vegetable samosa, aloo tikki, onion bhaji and pakora arriving together with curried chickpeas and tamarind chutney, a way to taste the fried end of the kitchen before committing to mains. From there the curry section does the heavy lifting. Chicken tikka masala comes in a creamy tomato gravy with peppers; coconut chicken curry swaps the cream for a sweeter, spiced coconut base; mango chicken leans frankly sweet; and the korma runs mild and rich with cashew. Lamb and beef get the same onion-ginger-tomato treatment, with vindaloo on hand for anyone who wants the heat turned up and a dash of vinegar behind it. The tandoor adds another register — chicken tikka, quarter-leg tandoori chicken, paneer tikka and a protein-rich soya chaap, marinated and fired in the oven rather than sauced — while the biryanis arrive layered with onion, tomato and a crown of crisp fried onion.

What sets the menu apart from a standard curry house is the second kitchen running alongside the first. A full Hakka section carries the Indo-Chinese cooking that grew up in India's Chinese communities: chilli chicken sautéed with onion and green chilli, chicken Manchurian in a tangy-hot sauce, Hakka noodles and chow mein, and momos served three ways — steamed with garlic sauce, tossed tandoori-style, or fried with chilli and garlic. A Bombay chaat list sits beside it, with pani puri, bhel puri, samosa chaat and chaat papri covering the street-food end. The result is a kitchen that puts Punjabi-style curries and Indo-Chinese stir-fries on the same table without either reading as an afterthought — two traditions a Grimsby diner would otherwise often have to visit two restaurants to find.

The vegetarian half of the menu is deep enough to stand on its own. Chana masala, aloo matar, aloo palak, Bombay potatoes, tadka daal and a baked-eggplant dish with peas and tomato are all marked vegan; palak paneer, paneer makhani and malai kofta cover the dairy-rich side; and onion bhaji and vegetable pakora are flagged gluten-free for anyone steering around wheat. Paneer tikka and the soya chaap give the tandoor a meat-free option as well. Curry mains land in the high teens, with most vegetarian plates priced under the meat curries and the breads and sides priced to fill out an order rather than inflate it. The kitchen is open every day for lunch and dinner and runs dine-in alongside takeout and delivery through its own site and the usual ordering apps — the practical shape of a place that works for routine more than occasion.

The clearest read on how Indian Hut means to be used is its family bundles. The dinner for four sets out four mains, four samosas, two garlic naan, two butter naan and two rice — one order built to feed a group rather than a person, with a smaller dinner-for-two for a quieter night. It is the format the rest of the menu points toward: order across the curries, the tandoor and the Hakka plates, add bread and rice, and let everyone share it out. Mango lassi cuts the heat, beer and wine round out the meal, and gulab jamun in syrup finishes it.