A brick building in Thompsons Close with the Cinnamon Indian Restaurant sign still above the shopfront, a restaurant fitters' banner in the window and an OVEE poster taped to the glass door
Cinnamon's sign is still up, but the poster on the door tells a different story

A new restaurant is on its way to Harpenden, and we'll be honest: we don't know a great deal about it yet.

OVEE calls itself a "British Asian restaurant" and is moving into Thompsons Close, behind the High Street, where Cinnamon used to be. It has started promoting itself on Instagram (here, here and here), and one of its stories explains that Ovee means "heritage". The idea is to bring South Asian flavours together with British dining culture, somewhere "traditional spices meet modern tastes" and every meal feels like coming home.

As for when, OVEE's first announcement said it would open from Thursday 22 October, but that date has disappeared from its Instagram in the last few days. The poster on the door just says "Opening soon", and the fitters' banner is still in the window, so treat the 22nd as pencilled in rather than inked.

OVEE's poster on the restaurant's glass door, reading "Hello Harpenden!!!" above a gold lotus logo and the words "Opening soon"
Hello to you too

There's no menu yet either, so whether "British Asian" means a Sunday roast with a tandoori twist or a tikka masala with a side of chips, we can't say. We wouldn't send either back.

A confession: we never made it to Cinnamon, so we can't tell you what OVEE has to live up to. We do know it's a tricky spot. Thompsons Close is easy to miss, and you'd only find a restaurant there if you knew to look. OVEE will need to make some noise to tempt people off the High Street, so it's no bad thing that it has started early.

The OVEE Cheat Sheet

  • The Location: Thompsons Close, Harpenden, just off the High Street, where Cinnamon used to be.
  • The Launch: "Opening soon". It was 22 October; now it's anyone's guess.
  • The Updates: On OVEE's Instagram.
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