Try the prawn dish championed by Grace Dent at new Indian bistro in Worthing

Bauji Bistro has moved into the former OM Taste Of Nepal restaurant, in Rowlands Road, and staff have received a warm welcome from the local community.

Chef Dayashankar Sharma is serving dishes that have made his name at his Michelin Guide listed London restaurant Heritage Dulwich, as well as dishes unique to Worthing, all rooted in the nostalgic flavours of his childhood in Rajasthan.

We were invited to an intimate Chef’s Table dinner on Wednesday, April 8, and were the first to use the restaurant's private dining room at the rear of the main restaurant.

Roy Rai, Sharma's business partner, said there will be a few finishing touches to the room in the coming days and it will then be available for parties of ten to dine in their own exclusive setting.

Rather than being offered a menu, we were served dishes chosen by the chef, starting with a mixed basket of popodoms with three hand-selected chutneys. I can highly recommend the mixed berry and herbs chutney, it is delicious.

From the small plates menu, we tried kale and palak patta chaat and dahi ke kebab. The chaat is a street food favourite with crispy kale and spinach, a great start to the meal.

Roy said: “The chaat originates from Delhi. It is a traditional chaat but what chef has done is taken a contemporary twist to it and made it with kale and baby spinach. They are deep fried and served with lashings of yoghurt and tamarind chutney.”

Sharma said the kebab was one of his personal favourites, soft and creamy inside and crunchy outside.

Roy added: “This is a kebab made with yoghurt, paneer and cream cheese. This is something you will not find in London yet. This is one of the very classic dishes you will find in the streets of India.

“What Chef has done over here is served it with some mustard sauce on it and he has got some cream cheese, which is frozen, and the yoghurt is frozen first and it is flash fried along with noodles on the outside. The sauce is mint sauce and you have also got some red sauce on top.”

Next were dishes from the Grills selection, including lamb chops, tandoori avocado and venison, and shatkora jhinga, signature prawns with rare shatkora citrus.

The venison dish was like nothing I'd eaten before, tender julienne strips of meat served inside warm avocado – a superb combination.

Roy said: “This particular dish represents hunting for Rajasthan. In the Buddhist era, the kings used to go out hunting and game dishes were not easily available for the civilians. So what chef has done is taken the avocado, filled it up with some tomato salsa with cream cheese and layered that up with some wild venison, topped with cream cheese.”

The lamb, thick and meaty, is a favourite on the menu at Heritage Dulwich and the king prawns dish went down a storm with food critic Grace Dent.

She wrote in The Guardian: “I took a photo of these wondrous, bulbous, heavenly super-shrimp, which I keep on my phone and look at during sadder moments in life.”

The prawns are marinated in shatkora, a rare lemony spice from India, and red chillies.

Roy said: “These are the main star dishes of our menu, so good we had to bring them to Worthing. The lamb chops, we do double bone off the rack. It is marinated in raw papaya, which acts like a natural tenderiser.”

Our main course was served family-style, designed for sharing around the table. There was cranberry paneer kofta, lal maas and kasundi prawns, served with Bauji daal makhni, rice and a selection of breads.

Each dish had its own unique sauce. Lal maas is a rich slow-cooked lamb dish from Sharma's childhood and kasundi prawns are West Bengal's pride and joy, served with a bold mustard gravy.

The kofta is a clever dish, combining grated paneer with potato to make dumplings that are then filled with cranberry and served with a sweet poppy seed sauce.

Our stand-out favourite was the Bauji daal makhni, an incredibly rich dish that we were surprised to learn took 24 hours to make! Sharma sticks with tradition and cooks it over charcoal, which only adds to the flavour.

We finished with gulab jamun with clotted cream ice cream, a delicious sweet and syrupy dessert that we absolutely loved.

Sharma said he grew up in Rajasthan and wanted to bring a lot of dishes from the north of India to Worthing.

He said: “These are the dishes which I grew up with. Some of the dishes are inspired by my father. On Saturdays and Sundays, he used to cook for us. The favourite dishes which I like the most are on the menu.”

In fact the restaurant is named in honour of his late father, as Bauji draws on the Hindi word for 'father'.