Paprika Restaurant - Newcastle

Paprika is the kind of family-run South Asian restaurant that you feel blessed to have stumbled across. The service, the food, the atmosphere at the restaurant’s Durham Road premises in Gateshead’s Low Fell all exude the sense that you are dining in the home on the invitation of a personal friend. As a self-described Bangladeshi restaurant, Paprika more accurately offers Bengali cuisine, straddling the border between the small riverine nation to the southeast of its large neighbour India. Nevertheless, the recipes used in the kitchen are as traditional as can be, handed down through generations of the family and bringing incredible flavours and aromas to table.

Take your seats at Paprika’s warmly appointed Durham Road, Low Fell restaurant and order up a classic Cobra or Kingfisher, available on tap, to whet your whistle while you browse the restaurant’s extensive selection of Bangladeshi and Bengali cuisine. There’s also a great selection of wine on offer, but who could resist the charms of a cold one with a starter of morich bahar, green peppers stuffed with prawns, potatoes, or mixed vegetables, or a couple of mouthwatering tikka? Gateshead’s South Asian purists might want to opt for a traditional favourite from the main menu, but if you do we encourage you to broaden your horizons and go for the Malayan curry cooked with bananas and pineapple.

Tandoori options abound at Paprika, with the hasina skewering chicken or lamb with chunky onions, green peppers and tomatoes before being oven-baked and served on a sizzling platter. For a true taste of Bengali and Bangladeshi cuisine in Gateshead’s Low Fell, Paprika lay on a good number of mach or seafood dishes such as the golden balti – king prawns cooked with garlic, tomato, onion, green peppers and the chef’s special spice masala. Vegetarians who can handle the heat should try the chilli begun, a Madras hot dish of aubergine cooked once again in the chef’s secret blend with a heap of spicy green chilli. Alternatively, there are many house specialities to explore, and banqueting sets for the indulgent or downright indecisive.