Two Birmingham restaurants have been honoured in the 2007 British Curry Awards.
Lasan in St James Street was named among the country’s ten best restaurants and Asha’s in Newhall Street won the Best Newcomer Award for restaurants that have been open for less than three years.
The British Curry Awards, sponsored by Lloyds TSB Cardnet, is the biggest event in the curry calendar. Last night’s (21 Oct) ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel was attended by more than 1,100 restaurateurs, MPs, diplomats and celebrity guests.
Lasan was one of seven West Midlands restaurants to make it to the list of 100 establishments across the UK from which the ten winners were selected. The others were Agra Palace, Nuneaton; Rajnagar, Solihull; Sonargaon Tandoori, Cheylesmore, Coventry; The Raj Spice, Warley; Turmeric Gold, Coventry; and Pickles Fusion, Henley in Arden, Solihull.
Asha’s beat 12 other shortlisted restaurants from throughout the UK to the Best Newcomer trophy.
TV and radio celebrity Chris Tarrant, famously arrested earlier this year in an incident at a curry restaurant in Nottingham, hosted the awards ceremony which will be seen by TV viewers across the globe.
He told the audience: “I brought a new kind of fame this summer to Indian restaurants in the Nottingham area when I jokingly lobbed a spoon at a rather persistent fellow diner. Four policemen in flak jackets arrived to arrest me! It made the headlines of every national newspaper, ITN and Sky News.
“Nottingham is a nice city, it has great Indian restaurants, but it also has a big crime problem. It now officially has the biggest number of gun crimes of any city in Europe. It did seem to me at the time that surely there was something
more pressing that the police's armed response team should be doing.
“It was mercifully all cleared up for the nonsense that it was. But still, officially, the statistics for Nottingham read for the year 2007: 312 gun crimes…and one spoon attack!”
Although unable to attend in person, Tory leader David Cameron recorded a personal video message for the awards ceremony.
He said: “The tremendous contribution that the British spice industry makes to our country is clear for all to see – the 100,000 people it employs, the billions it contributes to our economy and then there’s the sheer enjoyment which the currently 10,000 curry restaurants provide.
“Whether you like a bhuna or a dopiaza, or whether you like a balti or whether, like some people, you look at the menu and you just panic and have the chicken tikka massala, we all have got our favourite curry and our favourite restaurant.
“But I know there are real challenges ahead for the future, especially in recruiting skilled staff. This is one reason why it’s good to celebrate the industry as a whole and, in particular, excellence within it. Celebrating success helps to inspire others, too.”
The winners were:
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in Central London and the City: La Porte des Indes, W1
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in Greater London & Suburbs: Brilliant Restaurant, Southall
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the South West: Rajpoot, Bath
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the South East: Aziz, Oxford
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the West Midlands: Lasan, Birmingham
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the East Midlands: Mem Saab, Northampton
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the North East: The Valley, Corbridge, Northumberland
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in the North West: Indian Ocean, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in Wales: Bengal Dynasty, Flintshire
British Curry Award Best Restaurant in Scotland: Britannia Spice, Edinburgh
British Curry Award Best Newcomer of the Year: Asha’s, Birmingham
A special award as Personality of the Year also went to Cyrus Todiwala MBE, owner of London’s Café Spice Namaste and one of Britain's most successful and widely admired Indian chefs.
This year’s British Curry Awards winners were chosen from a record number of more than 18,000 public nominations covering 3,000-plus restaurants.
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