Roti King

The roti canai is pulled, slapped and griddled to order in a basement under Doric Way, which is why the queue is twenty deep by five o'clock and why the newer branches still lose to it.

Why go

Sugen Gopal ran his family's restaurant in Ipoh, came to the UK, opened Oriental City in Colindale in 2003, and took this Euston basement in 2014 in the space that had been Euston Chinese. The stall was called Roti Stall and a customer renamed him. The kitchen has done one thing since: roti canai, made when you order it, "flaky, stringy roti" in Rianne Shlebak's words, with rendang or a curry to drag it through (The Infatuation). There are ten Roti King registrations across England and Scotland now, and this is the first one. The venue takes no reservations, no cash, and seats its last table at 9.45pm (Roti King).

Order this / avoid

• Order: roti canai, then the kari laksa, whose coconut broth Shlebak found "creamy, light, and slightly sweet." ref Char kuey teow if there are two of you.
• Avoid: arriving at five without a plan to stand, and arriving with cash.

What locals & experts say

• Gopal Krishnan, chef at Attawa, in Time Out's cheap-eats piece by Angela Hui, January 2022: "Roti King is a Malaysian restaurant. A lot of the dishes remind me of home, as there is a large Indian community which has influenced Malaysian cuisine over the years." On the room, "It's not glamorous like some restaurants - it is all about the food!" ref
• Rianne Shlebak, The Infatuation (February 2025), 8.4/10, reviewing this branch and arguing for it over the newer ones: "By 5pm the queue is 20-people long, and the staff, even with the stream of people, are smiley and welcoming," and "a dinner here is short, sweet, and filled with some of London's best Malaysian food." ref
• No national critic has reviewed this address in anything reachable on 30 July 2026. A rated-review score sits below a named newspaper critic in our evidence order, and the entry rests on one of each rather than pretending otherwise.

Good to know

• Where: 40 Doric Way, NW1 1LH, in the basement, a few minutes from Euston station.
• Sites: Roti King now registers ten kitchens with councils. Customer-facing ones are this basement at Doric Way, Waterloo at 97 Lower Marsh, Battersea Power Station at 16 Arches Lane, Artillery Lane in the City, a Canary Wharf kitchen, a counter as Gopal's Corners in Market Hall West End, plus Brighton and Edinburgh. Two more addresses in Haringey and Southall look like production rather than dining. A review of any of those is not a review of this one.
• Booking: none taken. Walk in, and expect to wait.
• Payment: cards only.
• Timing: last table seated at 9.45pm. Reckon on about 45 minutes in the room.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Camden, inspected 23 March 2026, with all three components at 5. That is a recent inspection and a clean one. ref

Jeff's take (his words)

Jeff saved Roti King with no note. His raw saved-places export carries an empty Note for this row, so nothing above is in his voice. What his save does carry is a Google Maps pin, and this pass used it: the feature ID sits in the same block as every other Euston, King's Cross and Bloomsbury row on his list, which is how the long-standing question of whether he had saved the Waterloo branch got settled in favour of the basement.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Worth the detour, and worth picking this branch over the newer ones. Sugen Gopal came from Ipoh by way of a family restaurant, took the Doric Way basement in 2014, and built a room around roti canai pulled and slapped to order. Rianne Shlebak scored it 8.4 for The Infatuation and made the argument that matters for a chain: the original is the one to queue for, even though Battersea and Waterloo are quicker. Her queue is twenty deep by five and the whole dinner runs about 45 minutes, which is the honest shape of the visit. Gopal Krishnan of Attawa, who cooks on the same Indian-Malaysian axis, picks it for exactly the reason a cook would: 'A lot of the dishes remind me of home, as there is a large Indian community which has influenced Malaysian cuisine over the years.' At the one-dollar band with a rating of 5 from Camden in March 2026, the value argument is finished before it starts. It stays below the top rung because the same food is now served at nine other addresses and no national critic has judged this one.