Brighton honoured in Curry Capital of Britain awards
21st October 2014
Author EditorPosted on Categories Features, Lifestyle
The 3 ‘B’s take the honours in Curry Capital event
After six months of voting and investigation, the thirteen judges of Curry Capital of Britain sponsored by hungryhouse.com, awarded the honours for 2014 to the 3 ‘B’s – BRADFORD (the winners) – Brighton (Runners-up) – Birmingham (Third).
This means that Bradford has taken the title, record breaking four years in a row despite the great efforts of other cities to beat them.
Peter Grove, organiser and founder of the event as part of 17th National Curry Week, was full of praise for the outstanding effort of the Yorkshire city with their score increasing nearly 9% on last year’s total. “It is as if they have found the magic formula,” he said. “Of all the competing cities they have understood the underlying message of the event to promote cohesion where there was division and have used curry as a bonding agent to bring different aspects of Bradford society together.” “As well as curry lovers and restaurateurs, they managed to bring together local businesses such as Lishman’s of Ilkley and their balti pies and Keelham’s Farm Shop with their tasty Tipsy Pig Ale, hotels and even the air cadets.” ” They managed to portray the local pride they have in all things ‘Bradford’ so much so that we will be using their approach as a blueprint for next year.”
Tourism Manager Patricia Tillotson and her team and the four restaurants representing Bradford, Kiplings, Shimla Spice, Aakash and Zaara’s, worked hard throughout the year to get their message across and showed an amazing example of how people can work together where they would normally never do so.
“No doubt there will be several complaints as to why a certain city has not done better but it can come down to their official health and safety standards or, more often than not, the lack of input from the cities themselves.” “We do not put rules on the submissions required or expect it to be costly but in some cases councils could not be bothered to send out the tourist material expected by an ordinary enquirer, thus letting their restaurants down.” “The lack of effort of some cities is very disappointing.”
If you are looking for the healthiest place to have your curry then Bradford and Nottingham head your list with 100% scores, London Central (Tamarind, Quilon, Chakra, Painted Heron) received the highest inspection marks from the judges and Babur in South London was, once again, the only restaurant to achieve maximum points. New to the top three, Brighton moved rapidly up the list from 12th last year with the support of the council and local PR man George Shaw, which would have pleased the Father of the British Curry Scene Sake Dean Mohammed, who opened the first curry restaurant in London in 1809 but later lived and died in Brighton.
Birmingham moved up one place to third but still have yet to mount the major challenge they seem capable of andLeicester re-affirmed itself is one of the best places to enjoy curry with a solid 4th place. Newcastle were placed last this year because one of the team restaurants closed during the judging period for renovation this effecting the marking and Wolverhampton slipped down the list as the local marketing team were no longer able to continue the fantastic support of previous years.
The presentation of the award will take place in Bradford at a date to be advised.
Result :
1/ Bradford 2/ Brighton 3/ Birmingham 4/ Leicester 5/ Leeds/Cardiff 7/ London South/Nottingham 9/ London East 10/ Edinburgh/Liverpool 12/ London North 13/ Manchester/Sheffield 15/ London West/Oxford 17/ Wolverhampton 18/ London Central 19/ Northampton 20/Newcastle (Glasgow did not compete this year)
Previous winners : London West(2001) : Glasgow(2002) : Glasgow (2003) : Bradford (2004) : Birmingham (2005) : Glasgow (2006) Leicester(2007) : Glasgow(2010) : Bradford(2011) : Bradford(2012) : Bradford(2013)