The True Story of Who Really Owns Britain's "Indian" Restaurants
It's not Indians. And Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Glasgow with Campbell's soup. Before you order that Chicken Tikka Masala, know this: the chef who makes it is almost certainly Bangladeshi, the recipe was invented in Glasgow, and the dish does not exist in India. Of Britain's 10,843 "Indian" restaurants, a staggering eighty to ninety percent are owned by families from a single district in Bangladesh called Sylhet. The rest are split between Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Punjabis, and Nepalis. The "Indian" label is a colonial-era brand that immigrants adopted because it sold. The British curry house is a masterpiece of migrant ingenuity, a monument to economic survival, and a magnificent lie that has fed a nation for fifty years. This is the story of who really owns the tandoor—and why your takeaway has nothing to do with India. The menu says Delhi, the kitchen says Sylhet, The gravy is British, the secret is kept, Ask for shatkora—wat...