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Organised by :
The Federation of Specialist Restaurants
P.O.Box 416,
Surbiton, Surrey
KT1 9BJ
020 8399 4831
The Curry Tree Charitable Fund
(www.thecurrytree.com)
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BRADFORD WIN CURRY CAPITAL OF BRITAIN 2011
A Rap, A Takeaway and a great big Bhaji The Rap -not Katy Perry and Snoop Dog with 'California Girls' but Wolverhampton's Amy Goodall and Wolf Radio's Richard Dodd with their version 'Wolverhampton for Curry Capital' : The Takeaway - the innovative submission by Glasgow Council complete with bag and containers backing the city and its team restaurants : The Great big Bhaji - 102.2kg by students at the Bradford College Food Academy and Bobby from team restaurant Prashad - nearly 18kg more than the previous Guinness World Record for the largest onion bhaji. These were a few of the many things highlighted by National Curry Week organiser Peter Grove when announcing Bradford as the winner of the title of Curry Capital of Britain for 2011 narrowly beating four times winner and current holder Glasgow into second place. In third place once again was Wolverhampton and gained special comment from Grove. "In most other years the performance by Kim Gilmour and the Wolverhampton team would have won the title easily. They held a great launch event, voted in a good team and built up a huge body of support from Mayor Bert Turner and local media Express & Star and Wolf and Beacon radio to thousands of Wolverhampton curry lovers". However, the efforts of Glasgow and Bradford were by far the best ever, with enough votes to cause the voting system to crash twice". Glasgow once again beat fellow Scottish contender Edinburgh to be the Curry Capital of Scotland, a position it has held since the competition began. The judges were again very impressed by the commitment of the council's Agnes Brisbane and her restaurant team of Slumdog, Kama Sutra, Neelim and KoolBa and particularly commended their fundraising contribution to The Curry Tree Charitable Fund making the city the most generous Curry Capital competitor in Britain for a second year. The judges' comment on the Glasgow bid was : "Introduced by Lord Provost Bob Winter, the submission was as good as ever, promoting the city well whilst being innovative and fun". The Bradford bid led by the council's Patricia Tillotson with a particularly strong restaurant team of Aagrah, Prashad, Kiplings and Shimla Spice win the title they first won in 2004. When the process started in April they decided last year's runner-up slot was not good enough and pulled out all the stops. Shimla Spice produced over 2000 emailed votes to win the title of Customer Restaurant of the Year 2011 and the city scored highly in every sector from "Scores on the Doors", to judges' visits and fund raising for The Curry Tree. The judges decided the Bradford bid showed deep understanding of the curry sector and particularly noted the creation of the International Food Academy and the Food Ministry. Leicester, winners in 2007, produced a very effective online council submission with good restaurant team support, particularly from Anjuna with its Beach Party held to raise donations for charity and were close up in fourth place beating Birmingham, winners in 2005, once again. Seventeen cities and boroughs were in the competition this year with the top ten being Bradford (Winner), Glasgow (Runner-up), 3rd Wolverhampton, 4th Leicester, 5th Edinburgh, 6th Newcastle, 7th Birmingham, 8th Manchester, 9th Nottingham, 10th equal Cardiff/Sheffield. Rajesh Saraf, Director of Kama Sutra Group in Scotland said "The UK Curry Capital of Britain competition is fiercely fought throughout the length and breadth of the country" and Mayor Wolverhampton M.H.Turner commented that the competition "will bring further prosperity and employment for all the cities that take part". For the organisers, Peter Grove particularly wished to thank the organising officer in each competing council for making the event such a success once again and already other cities are stating their intent to take part. This year one of the most dedicated voting was from South Tyneside Council and they were not even official competitors. When told of the possible added competition for 2012, four time winner Glasgow's Agnes Brisbane said "bring it on". The trophies for the winning city and team members will be presented by Anjali Pathak of National Curry Week sponsors Patak's at a date to be announced. |
Some comments from the 2006 event
"We and all the restaurants are delighted
with the result!"
Paula Greig - Glasgow City Council
"Fantastic - we are delighted. This is
brilliant news for Bradford and will go some way to building a more
positive image of the cities multiethnicity! "-
James Lee - Bradford City Council
"I'm thrilled that Glasgow has reclaimed
the title of Curry Capital of Britain and I'd like to congratulate
the Council's marketing and graphics team who put their heart and
soul into our bid." -
Liz Cameron - Lord Provost
"I hope this will encourage visitors to
come into the city and sample what's on offer. It could provide a
tremendous boost for trade. It's great to be in the news for the
right reasons for a change!" -
Terry Rooney - Bradford North MP
Previous Holders
Curry Capital: London West(2001) : Glasgow(2002) : Glasgow (2003)
: Bradford (2004) : Birmingham (2005) : Glasgow (2006)
EthniCity : Edinburgh (2003) : Birmingham (2004) : Glasgow (2005)
: Bradford (2006)
"This
sounds very interesting --- I wish the project well and look forward
to hearing about its progress"
Tony Blair, The Prime Minister