Online ordering for Indian and Pakistani restaurants in Southwark

Updated 13 November 2026. This page reads the Food Standards Agency register as it stood on 13 November 2026. It covers the Southwark council area and names no business. For the area as a whole, see our Southwark page.

In short: Southwark has 18 FSA-registered premises with Indian, curry or tandoori in the name, most in SE1 and SE15. A Southwark Indian restaurant can take direct orders on its own Chefzi page: plans run from £9 to £49 a month per location (ex VAT), commission is 0% ever, and the first month is free with no card.

The register lists 18 premises in Southwark with "tandoori", "balti", "karahi", "masala", "biryani", "tikka", "curry", "Indian", "Pakistani", "Lahore", "Karachi", "Peshawari" or "Punjab" in the business name, 10 of them registered as takeaways and 8 as restaurants or cafés. The most are in SE1 (9), SE15 (3), SE16 (2), SE22 (2). That is 1.1% of the area's 1,586 takeaway, restaurant and café premises, against 2.2% across the UK, so the word is less common here than in the UK as a whole.

The word is less common here than nationally, so a curry kitchen in Southwark may face fewer lookalikes on a delivery app than one in a bigger market, but customers still compare you with every other takeaway on the screen. Your own ordering page is the one place where no rival is listed beside you.

What the FSA register shows for Southwark Indian and Pakistani names

Read this as a name-keyword count, not a census. A premises is counted only if its registered name contains one of the words, so Indian and Pakistani restaurants with other names are missed and any place using the word for something else is included. Only takeaway, sandwich shop, restaurant, café and canteen premises are counted, and no business is named.

Of the 15 with a numeric rating, 7 (47%) are rated 5 and 1 (7%) are rated 0, 1 or 2. That is a lower share than the 66.5% of all rated takeaways in Southwark that hold a 5. A further 3 are awaiting inspection, awaiting publication or exempt. A rating is a snapshot of one inspection, and the FSA says so on every record.

Which postcode districts have the most

SE1 holds the most, 9 of the 18 (50%), and the premises sit across 5 postcode districts in all. Where several curry-named kitchens share a district, a short delivery time and a clear minimum order do more to win a repeat customer than a deeper menu.

How Southwark compares with the council areas next to it

The five nearest council areas by the centre of their food premises, with the same name-keyword count:

2 of the five neighbours have more of these names than Southwark, and 3 have fewer, so the field here is mid-sized. Neighbouring set-ups: Indian restaurant ordering in Tower Hamlets and Indian restaurant ordering in Westminster.

Southwark in the wider picture

Southwark has 620 takeaway and sandwich shop premises and 966 restaurant, café and canteen premises on the register. On takeaway premises it ranks 9 of 363 UK council areas, and 2 of 33 in London. Across all rated takeaways in Southwark, 66.5% hold a 5 against 62.0% across England, and 2.8% are rated 0 to 2 against 5.8%. Southwark is part of Greater London, whose page lists every council area there with its takeaway and restaurant counts.

Southwark Indian and Pakistani names in numbers

Set against population, Southwark has 0.58 Indian and Pakistani-named premises for every 10,000 residents, close to the UK figure of 0.64 (ONS mid-2025 population estimate for the area: 312,366). By raw count, Southwark is 71st of the 363 UK council areas for these names and 17th of 33 in London.

The word is most concentrated in SE22, where 2% of the district's food premises carry it, and thinnest in SE16 at 1%. Across the whole area the share is 1.1%.

These premises are inspected about as recently as the area as a whole: 33% inspected within a year (18 dated records) against 31% overall, with a median of 16 months since inspection against 17.

Population figures are ONS mid-2025 estimates; every other figure comes from the same FSA register pull as the tables above. Small samples move a lot from one inspection to the next, so read the shares as a guide to where the pattern is, not as a verdict on any business.

What this means for your online ordering

• Zones that match the map. The premises are concentrated in SE1 and SE15, so a tight zone around the busiest district with a wider second zone for the rest of Southwark fits the spread.
• Take cash as well as card. Cash on collection and cash on delivery are on every plan, and card payments are on Plus and Pro.
• Sell the set meal as one item. A meal for two or a family feast can be one menu item with a required choice for each curry, rice and side.
• Tablet offline? The Chefzi Orders app rings until someone accepts or rejects. If the device is offline, Chefzi texts the restaurant and then calls.
• Take party and office orders in advance. The catering feature lets customers book big orders for a date and time, with the notice you set, in their own section of the menu.

Late-night hot food in Southwark: what to check

If you sell hot food or drink after 11pm and before 5am, the Licensing Act 2003 treats it as late night refreshment, so you normally need the council's licence. We could not open Southwark's licensing page automatically, so ask the council's licensing team for its current process and fees.

The general rules for England and Wales are in our late night refreshment licence guide. Chefzi lets you set collection and delivery hours separately, so your ordering hours can follow whatever your licence conditions say. This is general information, not legal advice.

How to start

1. Book a short call: we enter your menu with you and aim to have your ordering page live within 24 to 48 hours.
2. Set required choices for the way your customers order, and set your delivery zones by postcode district or radius.
3. Add your ordering link to your Google Business Profile (how) and a QR code to every bag (QR kit).
4. With their permission, tell regulars about the page by SMS or email (how, Plus and Pro).

For more, see the Indian restaurant page, the commission calculator and our guide on moving customers from Just Eat to your own site, and the Southwark location page for every takeaway and restaurant figure in the council area, or all UK locations.

A worked example for a Southwark Indian restaurant

Treat this as an illustration, not a measurement for Southwark. No published average order value exists for Southwark Indian and Pakistani restaurants, so we assume £25, the default in our commission calculator, and a round 45 orders a week. Swap in your own figures.

Move 45 weekly orders (roughly 195 a month at £25, £4,875 of sales) from Just Eat to your own Chefzi link and the maths is this. On Just Eat's published partner rates (read 12 November 2026, details), 14% with your own drivers and 30% when it delivers, plus VAT, you would pay £819 at 14% (£683 plus £137 VAT) or £1,755 at 30% (£1,462 plus £292 VAT).

On Chefzi the same 195 orders carry 0% commission. You pay the flat plan: Plus, which adds card payments, is £22 a month (£19 billed annually) per location, excluding VAT, and it does not change if the month is busier. Card processing charges depend on your payment provider and are not modelled on either side. Orders customers still place through Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats keep paying those apps' commission; the example only covers the ones you move.

What Chefzi does not do

• Delivery: you run your own drivers. Chefzi has no courier integrations.
• No kiosk and no CRM.
• Pre-order lead time is one setting per location, not per dish.
• Marketplace orders still pay the marketplace's commission. Chefzi helps you move regulars across; it does not change what Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats charge.

Sources

• Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme open data API (api.ratings.food.gov.uk), authority Southwark, business types Takeaway/sandwich shop and Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen, name search for "tandoori", "balti", "karahi", "masala", "biryani", "tikka", "curry", "Indian", "Pakistani", "Lahore", "Karachi", "Peshawari" or "Punjab", extract 13 November 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Chefzi facts and pricing, chefzi.co.uk, read 13 November 2026.