Inside White Tiger: Kings Dock’s most ambitious opening of the year

White Tiger opens to the public on Tuesday 19th May, and I got inside for the launch event a few nights before the doors officially opened. It sits at Kings Dock, and the whole place has been five years in the making. You feel that the moment you walk in.

Let me start with the design, because this is what’s going to stay with you. The space is light, airy, and warm. Cream and honey tones, light wooden floors, brass detailing, soft tufted banquettes. The drama comes from the architecture, not the colour palette.

The centrepiece is a column in the middle of the room that fans out at the top into a canopy of ribs spreading across the ceiling like an inverted palm tree, or a tree of life. It anchors the whole space. Around the bar, large arched panels are set into the walls and backlit with a warm amber glow, with a swirling marbled texture that looks like alabaster or onyx. Then there are the pendant lights, somewhere between thirty and fifty of them in different sizes and shapes, all in a cream fabric with hand-drawn florals in orange, ochre and green. They run in clusters across both sides of the dining areas.

The entrance lounge is its own moment. A huge monochrome tiger mural with blue butterflies fluttering around it, a cluster of bronze pendant balls overhead, a glass staircase with LED-lit handrails, a Chesterfield sofa, and a grand piano. It sets the tone before you’ve taken your coat off.

And then there are the toilets. I always do a loo photo because honestly, you can tell a lot about a restaurant from what they do with the room nobody is supposed to care about. White Tiger have absolutely understood the assignment. The walls and ceiling are wrapped in a dark, dramatic tropical leaf wallpaper in olive, gold, black and lavender. Huge gilded ornate mirrors line the room, one of them engraved with “WARNING: WILDLY PHOTOGENIC” above the White Tiger logo and the tagline “INDIAN SOUL HAKKA FIRE.” Brass double sconces with pleated ikat-pattern shades in terracotta and navy. Marble counters, white basins, brass taps. It’s a completely different mood from the main room. Opulent, jungly, properly atmospheric. They’ve built the selfie into the design and I have absolutely no shame in admitting I obliged.

White Tiger Liverpool From the Beginning

White Tiger is the work of Dr Meenal Abhyankar and Dr Dhanya Kalathil, two Merseyside-based doctors and long-time friends, both 47. They’ve spent more than twenty years working in medicine across the Liverpool City Region, and White Tiger has been developed alongside that. The host opened the speeches. Five years of research. Five years of sleepless nights. A brand new career started at 47, in a field they knew nothing about. Then Meenal said, “We’ve been at each other’s throats sometimes, but we’re still standing.”

There’s a lot to admire in that level of honesty at a launch. They thanked their parents. They thanked their teenage daughters who’ve been holding the house together while their mothers built this. They called the kitchen, bar and front of house team the “unsung heroes,” and they meant it. None of it felt rehearsed.

The menu has been developed with two internationally acclaimed chefs and is built around two distinct concepts. Indian Soul is the regional Indian side, comforting classics treated with depth and balance, created by Anahita Dhondy. Think Butter Edamame Paneer, Salli Chicken, and a rich Dal Bukana. She wasn’t there on the night, but her colleague Chef Dhruv was representing her. The other side is Hakka Fire, drawing on the Indo-Chinese street food of Kolkata’s Tangra district. Wok-fired heat, bold spice, dishes like Chicken Manchurian and Triple Schezwan Fried Rice. The founders said this kind of cooking hasn’t really been represented in Liverpool before. That side has been curated by MasterChef India 2012 winner Shipra Khanna, who was at the event and got a proper standing ovation. She’s the author of nine cookbooks and has taught at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

On the night we were given a taste of the starters and told repeatedly to come back for the rest. I will.

The party itself was something else. They opened with an acoustic set, a guitarist and a singer, very soft and well-judged for the early speeches. Then the DJ took over. And then, completely unexpectedly, Juggy D came on. The DJ told us one of the owners listened to his music at university, which is exactly the kind of personal detail that turns a launch into a proper party. For anyone who doesn’t know the name, Juggy D is the British-Punjabi singer behind “Sohniye” and the Rishi Rich Project’s “Dance With You,” massive in the early 2000s and the first Punjabi-language album to chart in the UK. He absolutely blew the roof off. Everyone was up dancing within about thirty seconds.

The other moment I’ll mention because frankly I’m still buzzing about it: Robbie Fowler was there. I shamelessly skulked over and asked for a photo like I was sixteen again, and he was lovely about it. They don’t nickname him God for nothing.

White Tiger opens to the public on Tuesday 19th May and will be open Tuesday to Sunday each week. Bookings are available via whitetigeruk.com, and you can follow along on Instagram at @whitetiger.liverpool. You’ll find them at Kings Dock, Keel Wharf, Liverpool L3 4BX.

Interiors by Synthesis Group, Delhi-London.