Halal at BHARAT — how our halal-friendly kitchen works

อาหารอินเดียฮาลาล ห้วยขวาง กรุงเทพฯ — วัตถุดิบฮาลาล ไม่มีหมู ไม่ใช้แอลกอฮอล์ในการปรุง (ยังไม่ได้รับการรับรองร้านจาก CICOT)

The honest answer first: we are halal-friendly, not CICOT-certified. We buy halal-marked meat every morning, but the restaurant itself has not been through the Central Islamic Council of Thailand's restaurant-level audit. Here is exactly what that means and what we do every day to keep our food halal-friendly. (For our commercial overview of halal Indian dining in Bangkok, see halal Indian food in Bangkok.)

What "halal-friendly" means at BHARAT

Anyone looking for halal food in Bangkok runs into two levels of halal in Thailand:

• Full restaurant CICOT certification — an audit of the entire kitchen, supply chain, staff training and equipment by the Central Islamic Council of Thailand.
• Halal-friendly sourcing — a restaurant buys halal-marked ingredients but has not been through the formal restaurant audit.

We are in the second category. We are open about that — we would rather you know exactly where we stand than imply something we have not earned.

What we actually do

Our fresh meat, poultry and vegetables are sourced daily from Makro (Siam Makro), Thailand's largest wholesale food retailer. We buy halal-marked product lines, and we keep our purchasing tight enough that we know exactly which packs go into each preparation.

• Chicken: Halal-marked product lines from CP Foods (Charoen Pokphand) and Betagro. Both are major Thai poultry producers with halal product lines that carry the green halal logo on packaging. We pick those packs at Makro every morning.
• Goat (the "mutton" on our menu): Halal-marked bone-in goat from our halal supplier — a separate supplier from the poultry producers above, again identified by the green halal logo on the packaging.
• Fish: Fresh, sourced daily. Fish is halal in all four Sunni schools of law.
• Prawns and other shellfish: We do serve prawn dishes — Chilli Prawns, Tandoori Prawns, Prawns Butter Garlic and Prawn Biryani among them. Scholars differ here: the Hanafi school, which most Indian and Thai Muslims follow, permits fish but not other shellfish. If you follow that view, tell your server and we will steer you to the fish, chicken, goat or vegetarian dishes instead.
• Vegetables, fruits, dairy: Fresh from Makro every morning. Grains, spices, and produce are halal by nature.

What you will not find in our kitchen

• No pork. No bacon, no ham, no lard, no pork-based broths. The kitchen has never handled pork since the day we opened, and never will.
• No alcohol in cooking. Ever. No wine reductions, no beer batters, no rum-soaked desserts — nothing alcoholic touches the food at any stage. To be straight with you: beer and wine are served at the table in the dining room, dine-in only, and they are kept away from the kitchen entirely. Most tables drink fresh lassi, mocktails, masala chai or cold soft drinks.
• No mixed equipment with non-halal meat. All meat-handling utensils, cutting boards, pans, and surfaces are used only for the halal-marked products we buy. There is no non-halal meat in the building to cross-contaminate with.

About CICOT certification (the formal kind)

CICOT is the Central Islamic Council of Thailand, the official Thai government-recognised halal certification authority. There are two CICOT marks worth knowing about as a diner:

• Product-level CICOT certification: The green halal logo on packs of CP Foods, Betagro, Saha Farms and similar suppliers. This means the slaughter, processing and packaging of that specific product line was audited by CICOT. This is what we look for at Makro every morning.
• Restaurant-level CICOT certification: A separate, more involved audit of the restaurant's whole kitchen, staff, equipment, and procedures. This is what allows a restaurant to say "we are CICOT-certified." BHARAT does not currently hold this. Pursuing it is something we are looking at, but we have not been through that audit yet.

If full restaurant-level CICOT certification is essential for you, we want you to know that upfront. The Central Islamic Council of Thailand publishes the list of establishments that hold the restaurant-level mark — check it before you book. We are not on it yet.

What you can verify yourself

Walk in and ask any of our staff for the most recent supplier packaging. We keep packs from the morning's delivery available so you can see the green halal logo on the chicken or the goat with your own eyes. If you want, you can independently verify a producer's product-level halal certification at halal.co.th.

You can also see paperwork rather than take our word for it: the redacted copy of our Bangkok food-establishment certificate (แบบ สอ.4), issued by the Huai Khwang district office, is published on our about page. That is a district hygiene licence, not a halal certificate: we hold no halal certificate for the restaurant, and we are not going to dress one document up as the other.

Why we take this seriously

Muslim diners — Indian Muslim travellers staying at the nearby hotels, expat families in Bangkok, and halal-conscious tourists from across Southeast Asia and the Middle East — are an important part of who walks through our door. They have asked, repeatedly, for a place where they can eat North Indian food without compromising on halal sourcing.

We built our supply chain around that. We do not, however, want to imply more than we have earned. Halal-friendly is the honest description of where we are today.

For travelling Muslim diners

The whole menu is open to you. The vegetarian section is halal by default (no meat involvement at all). The biryani, kebabs, curries and the tandoori dishes off the real charcoal tandoor are the most-ordered, and any meat in them is the halal-marked product described above. We are 2 minutes walk from Grand Mercure Bangkok Atrium and other nearby hotels — see also Indian food in Huai Khwang for the surrounding neighbourhood. For the commercial overview specifically positioned for Muslim travellers, see halal Indian food in Bangkok; for the early-morning breakfast question many guests ask, halal Indian breakfast in Bangkok covers what is open early across the city.

Prayer time accommodation: if you need to step out for prayer during your meal, just tell your server — we can pause your order and keep your food warm for when you return.