Romail Gulzar: Leicester's Curry Champion

Romail Gulzar has made a name for himself as one of the leading lights of Leicester’s Indian community, and now he’s taken that a step further as the man behind Leicester’s recent naming as England Curry Capital.

But to take a few steps back, this is no accident. Romail has long been at the heart of promoting the city’s South Asian restaurant scene through his company Pukaar News, which provides broadcast media for a range of local and international outlets including BBC, Sky and ITV. The company has launched the careers of dozens of local young journalists and media professionals.

He is also the man behind the Leicestershire Curry Awards, which have been running since 2016, intended to highlight the sheer diversity and quality of the city’s curry. He took the format abroad in 2017, with the launch of the Toronto Curry Awards and the following year, launched National Samosa Week - an event which garnered world-wide press.

Last year, Romail took his love of curry one step further by opening his own Indian restaurant, the excellent Geoffrey’s, which can be found at the bottom of Leicester’s famous ‘Golden Mile’.

His campaign to make Leicester England’s Curry Capital was taken on as a passion project, designed to highlight the city’s strong and diverse culinary scene.

The UK Curry Capital was a national initiative set up by a man named Peter Grove, a curry enthusiast who wanted to share his passion for the food of the subcontinent. The Curry Capital competition ran for 15 years and Leicester was named UK Curry Capital back in 2007. Very sadly Peter passed away in 2016, the very year that Romail set up the Leicestershire Curry awards. At this point Bradford held the title and has been de facto champion ever since, one of five cities to take the crown, which also included Glasgow, Birmingham, and West London.

Through running the curry awards Romail recognised that Leicester deserved recognition for its amazing restaurant scene, given that the city has more Indian restaurants per head than any other in the UK. A recent TripAdvisor survey revealed that Leicester’s 240+ curry houses mean there is an average of 0.49 restaurants per 1,000 people, and the Indian community, which represents 16% of Leicester’s population is rightly proud of Leicester’s curry houses, desi pubs and fine dining restaurants.

Romail’s plan was to resurrect the England Curry Capital as an online competition, pitting Leicester against the reigning champion, Bradford. Gaining help from social media influencers, expert judges and food specialists, he arranged tasting visits to both cities and ran an online poll which received more than 11,000 votes from across the country, and particularly from curry enthusiasts.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Leicester triumphed, gaining 89% of the votes and earning the right to call itself England Curry Capital for the next two years. All this thanks to one man’s passion for his community, his culture and his love of food.