Restaurant Review

Fozia’s at The Grand Central

35 Renshaw Street, L1 2SF

By Robin Brown | Pakistani | £ |

No-one knows what to do with Grand Central. The elaborate Art Nouveau building has been a church, a cinema and a concert hall in its 121 years on the thrumming Renshaw Street. In its current form, Grand Central was first an ornate £2 million nightclub, then a home for the Quiggins diaspora. An oft-deserted food hall followed, then Smokie Mo’s, all big-screen football, tribute acts and ‘The Fat Montys’ (The Full Monty but, well, fuller). When the doors last closed in 2022, landlord Nextdom must have wondered if the site was doomed.

Enter Fozia Choudry, a force of nature in the form of a small Pakistani auntie. Over five years the cook-turned-proprietor has flipped a shipping container on Lodge Lane to a restaurant on Picton Road. She now holds the keys to Grand Central, along with an ambitious plan to host a restaurant and wedding venue in the vast, three-level building. I would not bet against her, but even Fozia admits to having doubts. The planned all-you-can-eat buffet has already been swapped out for the familiar à la carte menu, albeit with some new additions. Some terminally online malcontents have also taken exception to the temerity of a business owner redecorating the space they are renting.

Frankly the most recent makeover makes the place feel fresh, inviting and sympathetic. The wrought iron is still there, picked out in eye-catching white. All the design flourishes people loved about this building – choppy-sea ceilings, overblown plasterwork, glorious friezes – remain, now alongside flower walls and inverted umbrellas. If you were hoping for the sticky floors of the Gaudi-or-gaudy Barcelona era or the incense-and-hemp ambience of Quiggins you will likely be disappointed. If succulent, home-cooked Pakistani food or a large, swanky, ‘Grammable wedding venue is your thing, well, you are in luck.

Look, the food. That is the thing, is it not? I went with my brother, a man who knows his parantha from his puri, and can report it is good, authentic and inexpensive. On those three metrics, the lamb samosas (there are veggie alternatives) are probably the best thing you can eat in Liverpool. Fat, crunchy and stuffed full of steaming meat and veg, they are £4.50 for two. Try getting even a decent basket of bread or a sheepish bowl of olives for that money in the city centre. A few new elements have popped up on the menu at Grand Central.

There are enormous sharing platters of curries, breads and meats. Hot-and-sweet chicken wings are unctuous, charred and impossible to eat politely. They are another example of the fusion-y vibe here: desserts include homemade cheesecakes and brownies alongside traditional kulfi and kheer. The curries are complex, luxurious affairs and start from a tenner.

A rich butter chicken is a landmark dish, dripping with delicious calories. Lamb karahi bathes in silky, aromatic gravy laced with strips of fiery ginger. The tarka dhal is the best I have ever eaten. You will feel compelled to mop up the dregs with a naan: the Peshwari is fruity but not overly sweet; a keema naan is a meal in itself. There is no booze (I had a sublime mango lassi) but adjoining Fozia’s is the new French-inspired bar Belle’s, which looks calm and classy.

Is Grand Central a bridge too far for Fozia? Hard to tell. UNI has been a constant, reliable presence just up the road for years and there are several other decent options nearby. This bodes well, but then I look at the hot-fat insanity of Chicken Bazooka and the splenetic bars and wonder. The food, the hospitality, bringing a disused building back to life… if there was any justice that would be enough.

Cities like to talk about regeneration as if it arrives by press release or aluminium cladding. In reality it usually turns up like this: one woman, a simple menu and plenty of bloodymindedness. Grand Central has outlasted every trend thrown at it. It might yet survive on the oldest one of all, feeding people properly.

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