The Ivory Tusk, Shepperton
As life has returned to normal and people are venturing out again, instead of just getting deliveries and take aways, we visited The Ivory Tusk on the high street of Shepperton to see what’s new. One major change – Musa is back at front of house. After much searching he has recruited a very experienced chef of 36 years. It feels as if normal service has been resumed. During Covid, and the life changes that came with it, the team at Ivory Tusk had to adapt. Musa, a skilled and experienced chef, went backstage. He spent most of the past two years in the kitchen. The quality of the food was definitely maintained. That is great when clients were only able to have take aways or deliveries. Once dining out became possible again, it was noted that service at front of house was not quite what we had become used to. Many regulars even thought that Musa had left. Fear not. The dynamic Musa is back front of house and looking forward to welcoming you back and to offering the same warm and effi-cient service you have become used to. When we visited he was running around taking or-ders, welcoming regulars and serving food. Always with a smile. Sister Ameena is there too. This brother and sister team have been running Ivory Tusk since 1988 and 1998 re-spectively. Musa took the reins from his fa-ther who had opened the restaurant in 1983. It had not been the plan. Musa and Ameena both with degrees in Business Management, gave up successful careers to run the family restau-rant. Ivory Tusk will be celebrating 40 years next year. That length of tenure shows how popu-lar the place is. So, back to our latest visit. One of our party has extreme food intolerance so called in ad-vance to see what might be available. The proposed dish was the basic chicken tikka. Marinated chicken with spices, roasted in a hot tandoor and usually served on a sizzling hot plate with plenty of fried onions. As the latter were definitely on the “no go” list, the dish was served very simply on a plate, with no frills. But it was hot, fragrant, moist and tasty. Alt-hough it was not destined for my plate, it was probably my favourite dish of the evening. It’s simplicity means there is nowhere to hide. It had to be good, and it was. One of our party opted for the ever popular Murgh Palak Tawa. Sliced chicken is prepared with spinach, tomatoes, ginger, onions and coconut milk. It is different to any-thing I have tasted in other curry houses. Mild but inter-esting and a certain crowd pleaser. This dish is available for take out. We also sampled the Monkfish Nakarel and Crevettes Assadh. Both these house specials are only on the eat in menu. They need to be served com-pletely fresh so as to be at their absolute best. There is no compromising on quality at Ivory Tusk. Always keen to attract new diners, you are able to find 20% off your first online order on the restaurants own website www.theivorytusk.co.uk, or 10% off every order on click and collect. Below we bring you a 20% off food for a dine in experience. thefork.co.uk have so many 10/10 reviews for this independent Shepperton restaurant. Com-ments are often about the welcome and service. But atmosphere and food get top marks. If the only niggle is an occasional “too many tomatoes used as garnish” that is not exactly a reason not to go! My guests were out of towners and declared their experience of Ivory Tusk “excellent” and “different to other curry houses”. Like many other diners they commented “we will be back”. So if you want a consistently good local curry house, and service with a smile, look no further than the Ivory Tusk. Www.theivorytusk.com.
