Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar with Rohit Khattar (right) and his wife Rashmi (left), and a Sitaaray wall. (Telegraph pictures)

London, Dec. 7: Britain’s first “Bollywood restaurant” was inaugurated in Drury Lane in the heart of London’s theatre land last night by Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar.

Called Sitaaray, it is the latest innovation from restaurateur Rohit Khattar, who is well known in Delhi for running the capital’s Habitat Centre as well as the Chor Bizarre restaurant — the latter has a flourishing branch in London.

Khattar, who has a reputation for using the profits from his businesses to feed his art addiction, has raided “my huge collection of Indian film photographs and posters” to display a selection from Madhubala to Aishwarya on the walls of his new restaurant.

Azmi and Akhtar performed the honours last night after a performance in the adjacent 940-seat New London Theatre of their two-hander play, Kaifi aur Main, which has been adapted from the book Yaad ki Rehguzar written by Shabana’s mother, Shaukat Azmi.

The play, written by Akhtar and directed by Ramesh Talwar, tells of the life of Shabana’s father, the Urdu poet and lyricist Kaifi Azmi, as seen through the eyes of his wife.

On the walls of Sitaaray are posters and photographs of romantic couples from films stretching back 75 years. Several of the films have lyrics or scripts written either by Javed Akhtar or Kaifi Azmi.

One wall is devoted to screen villains and another to vamps, on which Khattar has a personal theory that influences how his pictures are arranged. He expects heated debate on omissions, inclusions and his arrangements.

“In the old days you could tell who were the vamps because they were scantily dressed, but now the heroines also look like vamps because they are also scantily dressed so there’s no difference,” he suggested.

The Bollywood touch goes beyond the cinema memorabilia on the walls, however. Khattar wants his restaurant to be a meeting point for those interested in the Indian arts and to set up a culture club as well.

Situated in the basement below Sitaaray is another new restaurant, Tamarai, offering “pan Asian food”, that Khattar has opened.

“Every Sunday the basement will be taken over to show Indian films,” said Khattar.