National Service — The Bangladeshi Legacy of the British Curry House
It serves dishes like roast duck vindaloo and “specialty prawn curry from the kitchen of Raja of Travancore.” If it seems a world away from the humble, budget-conscious curry houses that punctuate towns across the country, and which are a staple of many British people’s night outs, that’s because it is.But despite its supposed claim to fame, Veeraswamy was not the first Indian restaurant in the country, or even the first in London. Instead, the earliest versions of Indian restaurants arrived in Britain centuries before—and it was Bangladeshi restaurateurs and cooks, not English army officers, who were most responsible for popularizing and shaping the curry house into its modern incarnation. Along the way, they had to confront issues ranging from racist bullying and fierce competition to the problem of alcohol and the shortage of workers. Now, in the face of difficult economic and political headwinds, they are forced to consider another existential question: whether there is a real future for the British curry house at all.