Article - Who Killed the Great British Curry House?

You would have thought with over 50 years of migration from the Indian subcontinent we would have sufficient knowledge for domestically trained chefs. I mean all our other ethnic cuisine restaurants seem to manage.
 
Great article, thanks for sharing. I can really see how my personal tastes have grown over the years and become more adventurous in line with what the article describes. Sadly the conservative government seems to think that all immigration is bad and wrong. The £35,000 wage cap is mental, and it doesn't just apply to curry chefs - nurses and junior doctors from abroad don't even get close to this figure!
 
PlacidCasual said:
You would have thought with over 50 years of migration from the Indian subcontinent we would have sufficient knowledge for domestically trained chefs. I mean all our other ethnic cuisine restaurants seem to manage.
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This for me. They may not like to give their secrets away, but there's plenty of Asian children being born in the UK to pass knowledge onto rather than needing to import the labour.

Mind you, like a lot of businesses, once it gets tough, only the best survive, so the less their are, hopefully the quality should stay very high or improve. Supermarkets are another hit to it as well.

Years back the only ready made curries were crappy Vesta boil in the bags or frozen jobbies. Now when I go in the supermarkets on saturdays, I see so many people buying these bagged up meals for 2 they do. 2 curries, 2 rice, and 5 sides for like, £9. That's the cost of just a curry and rice. In these austere times perhaps more people are turning to supermarket meals the same way that many have started staying in at weekends with a case of beer for a tenner and avoiding pub prices.
 
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PlacidCasual said:
You would have thought with over 50 years of migration from the Indian subcontinent we would have sufficient knowledge for domestically trained chefs. I mean all our other ethnic cuisine restaurants seem to manage.
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If you bothered to read the article you would find out why you are wrong.

And this issue is not related to only to Indian Restaurants, it is pervasive across the culinary industry.
 
D.P. said:
robfosters said:
This for me. They may not like to give their secrets away, but there's plenty of Asian children being born in the UK to pass knowledge onto rather than needing to import the labour.
As above, read the article and you will answer your own question.
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Apologies, but I stand by my second paragraph.

Supermarkets are small business killers. Take aways, offies, butchers, bakers, they cripple them. I don't remember the last time I saw an off licence. Oddbins and threshers used to be all over the place, now it only seems to be mixed stores like Londis and Nisa selling alcohol.
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Around here it was the Pakistanis. They bought up loads of the local Indian curry houses, which then immediately went down hill in hygiene and quality. Or they were closed down and re-opened as yet another dodgy kebab or fried chicken shop.
 
I think people's expectations are higher than they used to be. It's a struggle sometimes to find a curry house with a 4 or 5 star hygiene rating.
 
The immigration angle is a distraction. As others have said, the shortage of good chefs isn't unique to curry houses. This isn't particularly surprising for what's a demanding job on low pay and with unsociable hours. People should expect to pay more when eating out but it's more likely that robots will take over before that ever happens.

I'm not filled with sympathy for some businesses that have failed to modernise and are struggling. For various reasons I think I'd opt for a ~posh ready meal curry from a supermarket over something from your typical high street place.
 
There's a lot more choice on the highstreet now a days. 10 years ago your choice was basically the chipper, chinese, or an Indian round here. A lot easier to find French, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Japanese or Thai places, plus the usual kebab shops so I'm not surprised curry houses are feeling the pinch regardless of immigration.
 
Jokester said:
There's a lot more choice on the highstreet now a days. 10 years ago your choice was basically the chipper, chinese, or an Indian round here. A lot easier to find French, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Japanese or Thai places, plus the usual kebab shops so I'm not surprised curry houses are feeling the pinch regardless of immigration.
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this and theres still far to many curry houses, i don't understand how they are all still open.
robfosters said:
Mind you, like a lot of businesses, once it gets tough, only the best survive, so the less their are, hopefully the quality should stay very high or improve. Supermarkets are another hit to it as well.
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unfortunately this isn't true for the vast majority of takeaways, its far more about location than quality. How some places survive is shocking, people will only go to their closest one, regardless of qaulity, but more shockingly seem to enjoy it, just look at Just eat, i would rate most of those places at 1 or 2 stars (yet they are almost all 3.5-5 stars), with only a couple higher. I mean out of all the ones on just eat, only two in my area actually make proper french fries that aren't anaemic soggy mess.
 
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Here in Brum, there's infamously a god awful number of curry houses - they seem to be flippin everywhere, and I've frequented a good amount in my time.

Unfortunately, a lot start of really good when new, but as time progresses, the quality just drops off. Plus I get they like to offer everything, but each curry house has it's nicely honed handful of dishes, and then a gigantic menu where I reckon 60-75% they're just hoping it's nice.

Also, bad hygine standards really put people off which has a detrimental effect - and then there's any number of places you can order from with all kinds of different cuisine. I've seen a shift from the usual Chinese/Indian takeaway delivery at various friends houses over the years, to the massive selection that's now available at the tap of a button on apps like Hungry House. Carribean, Mexican, Persian - heck even a fish and chip shop will deliver these days so I've noticed the Indian gets put to the back of the list when there's a group of people ordering a takeaway.
 
Ridiculous parking restrictions in many town centres and a more health conscious drive play a part too I have to believe. Certainly the former has stopped me these days, now it's a takeaway which means it's a direct choice and I'm having less takeaways overall now.
 
sorry but "we can't get staff from India" is a ******** argument.

i think its more that peoples tastes have moved on.

people want more than a bowl of rice meat and gravy these days.
 
I think it's time the curry industry fell in line with the gourmet trend that is now taking over. People no longer want to go in to X restaurant and have a menu of 100 dishes; which is what most curry houses offer. They offer an incredibly extensive menu which usually means the quality suffers. Indian restaurants need to start specialising in certain dishes and styles to build their niche. People these days are far happier to walk in to a place offering 10-20 well thought out dishes. How do I know this? Because every gourmet / specialist / hipster place in town is thriving. And having frequented most of these place it's not difficult why, it's something you truly can't reproduce at home or get from the supermarket meal deal section. This is food you need to venture out for and it adds to the experience.

Of course all the points made in the article and by above posters are also very relevant.

Dishoom is a perfect example of this. Their niche is Indian street food. They have a medium size menu interesting, well thought out, flavourful dishes in a quirky setting.
 
Gribs said:
They're cash businesses so they're very good for laundering the proceeds of crime.
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I'm no money laundering expert :p but wouldn't a restaurant be too much faff for this? It's usually phone repair / phone accessory shops which are the most blatant money laundering set ups. Buy a job lot of tat, get a cheapo retail shop, pay someone minimum wage to stand in there all day. I'm surprised they're not being cracked down on considering just how obvious they are.
 
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