Tory party leader David Cameron has praised Britain’s £3.5 billion curry restaurant industry for showing what can be achieved when communities come together.

Speaking tonight (3 Nov) at the 2009 British Curry Awards in London, Mr Cameron said: “It’s a real pleasure to be here at the Oscars of the spice industry.

“The British curry industry is a great success story. It’s shown how people from all backgrounds, with different creeds and cultures, can come together as one.

“And it’s shown exactly what an open-minded, dynamic and enterprising country can achieve. Enam Ali – and everyone here this evening – should be incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved.”

By attending the glittering awards dinner at the Battersea Evolution, Mr Cameron became the first political leader to speak at an event organised by the spice restaurant industry.

Earlier he had heard British Curry Awards founder and organiser Enam Ali appeal for help from politicians to help solve a skills shortage that was damaging the curry restaurant industry.

“We recognise that the long-term solution to our staffing problems is to attract and groom our home-grown chefs,” he said. “The improved profile that these awards have given to our industry is already showing some results, with more young people among the award winners.

“But this is a slow process and, in the short and medium term, we will still need to turn back to the sub-continent to find many of the skilled people we need to help keep our industry moving forward and meet diners’ increasing demands for regional cooking.”

Mr Ali said that the points-based immigration system, introduced earlier this year, had done nothing to help their cause.

“We were told this would provide us with a sensible solution to our problems. Sadly it has turned out to be anything but,” he said.
“Restaurateurs are still facing problems obtaining sponsors’ certificates from the Home Office, which is always a lengthy process, and now we have the requirement for chefs to pass an English test in order to obtain a UK visa. Why is it that footballers and football managers can come to work in this country without knowing English but chefs can’t? Chefs are in great demand here, but only for their cooking skills. They don’t need to know English to cook a damned good curry!
“When we ask politicians for help and support on this subject, we are not seeking favours. We are merely asking for fairness and common sense.”
The British Curry Awards are recognised as the ‘Oscars’ of Britain’s £3.5bn spice restaurant industry. Tonight’s ceremony, hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald and attended by more than 1,500 restaurateurs, diplomats, MPs and celebrity guests, honoured nine that had each been judged the best in their regions.

They were:
Scotland / Northern Ireland: Cinnamon, Aberdeen
North East: Aagrah, Garforth, Leeds
North West: Indian Ocean, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire
Midlands: Lasan, Birmingham
Wales: Bokhara Brasserie, Bridgend
South East: Jaipur, Milton Keynes
South West: Rajpoot, Bath
London Central & City: Bombay Brasserie, London SW7
London Suburbs: Brilliant Restaurant, Southall

In addition, London’s Tayyabs won the Best Casual Dining category for less formal restaurants and Cinnamon Kitchen & Anise, also in London, picked up the Newcomer of the Year Award for establishments that have been open for less than three years.

Anjum Anand, presenter of the popular BBC2 series ‘Indian Food Made Easy’ and one of the first writers to create Indian recipes catering for the health-conscious cook, was the Personality of the Year and Sanjay Anand, boss of Asian outside catering operation Madhu’s, who provided the food for last night’s awards dinner, received a special Recognition Award for Catering.

This year’s British Curry Awards winners were chosen from a record 40,000 public nominations covering more than 2,700 restaurants.