The Best Indian Takeaway in Waterlooville 2026

This one isn't close, and it isn't close because of one gushing five-star review — it's close because Shalimar has, by some distance, the biggest and most consistent review base of any Indian venue in the area. Hundreds of Hambledon Parade regulars, a Tripadvisor ranking of #13 out of 85 Waterlooville restaurants, and 1,833 reviews on Restaurant Guru. This is the "my nan's been coming here since before you were born" spot, and the numbers back up every word of the legend.

It isn't spotless — at that kind of review volume, somebody, somewhere, has had a rough night (there's a one-star titled "SHALIMAR NIGHTMARE" out there if you go looking, and we're not going to pretend it doesn't exist). But weighed against hundreds of consistently glowing reviews built up over years, that's the exception proving the rule, not the rule itself. Defensible, deserved, number one.

Red Rose Lounge actually ties Shalimar star-for-star at 4.4 — so why isn't it joint first? Because the crowd behind that number is smaller: a solid, genuine three-figure sample, just not in Shalimar's league yet. Family-run, "bringing vibrant flavours of India and Bangladesh since 2015," and by more than one account the town's go-to biryani order.

Nobody's writing poetry about Red Rose Lounge on Tripadvisor — they're just quietly going back, which, when you think about it, is the better compliment.

Here's where we have to be straight with you rather than just quoting the flattering number: Crookhorn's Google rating and its TripAdvisor rating genuinely don't agree, and rather than picking whichever one makes better copy, we're telling you both. Regulars reckon it comes down to which chef's on that night — which, fair enough, is true of most kitchens if you ask enough people.

When it lands, it properly lands — thick, generous sauces, portions that mean leftovers. There's also a real review on record calling a dansak "bland" and a lamb tikka masala tough, so consider that the honest range rather than us pretending it's uniform.

Monsoon matches Crookhorn's 4.2 on Google but sits a rung below it here, purely because the crowd behind that number is thinner — around 39 ratings on TripAdvisor and a handful on Facebook. Same headline star rating, smaller and less-proven sample, hence the honest ranking below Crookhorn rather than level with it. Portions are generous and the chicken tikka gets namechecked repeatedly; there are also genuine complaints on record about delivery delays, including one occasion where online orders kept coming in while the shop was actually shut for a water leak — worth knowing, not worth burying.

(Small transparency note: Monsoon sits right next door to Spice Box, #7 below, in the same little parade, and one of Spice Box's own web domains has turned up self-describing as "Monsoon Indian Takeaway" — possibly a rebrand, possibly shared ownership, genuinely unconfirmed either way. We've treated them as the two separate, currently-trading businesses they each present themselves as.)

Quick geography disclosure: Indian Cottage sits just over the line in Horndean, not central Waterlooville — but the brief that commissioned this list explicitly included the Horndean edge, and with 422 reviews on Restaurant Guru (second only to Shalimar's volume on this whole list), it earns its place comfortably.

One less glowing visit is also on record — "the whole meal was very disappointing and we all noticed the distinct lack of effort" — but set against 422 largely positive reviews, that reads like an off night, not the pattern.

Here's the one that needs the biggest honest asterisk on the whole list, and we're not burying it: Massalla Hut is the one venue here with a genuinely confirmed Google-native rating-and-count pair, and it's a perfect 5.0 stars — from 17 reviews. Seventeen is a small sample. That's precisely the "flawless score, tiny crowd" scenario this whole ranking rule exists to catch, and one other (unconfirmed, softer) source suggests the true underlying average may sit closer to 4.3 across a bigger pool of reviews than that snapshot caught. So: a loyal following that clearly adores the place, not an uncontested perfect record — which is why it lands at 6, not 1, despite the shiniest number on the page.

And the loyalty is real, and about as well-sourced as review quotes get — each one tied to a named Google reviewer:

Free onion bhajis land with every order, which — small sample or not — is the kind of detail that makes ten-plus years of loyalty make sense.

We could have quietly dropped Spice Box off this list and nobody would've asked why. We didn't, because it's a real, currently-trading Waterlooville business, and a "best of" that only ever prints good news isn't one you can trust. At 3.2 stars, this is genuinely the most mixed venue in the piece — so we'll give you the mixed picture rather than a polished one.

There are tougher reviews on record too — genuinely, this isn't a venue with universally glowing form, and the star rating reflects that honestly. When the king prawn jalfrezi and chicken khadary land right, people say so; when a visit goes wrong, they say that too. We'd rather give you the real range than a rewritten one — that's the whole point of doing this properly.