By Bikramjit Ray
BW HOTELIER caught up with Enam Ali, (see photo) British businessman of Bangladeshi descent and the founder of the British Curry Awards in 2005. Ali is also a restauranteur extraordinaire who has also advised the UK government when he was a member of the Home Office Hospitality sector advisory panel in 2008.
We began by asking Ali how he began in the restaurant trade. Ali, began by explaining that he wanted to become a lawyer and arrived in the UK in 1974 with that purpose, but through various circumstances, he found himself finishing a hospitality management course in Bournemouth.
’I thought I would finish my course and go back to Bangladesh to become a big hotelier,’ he told BW Hotelier. In fact, he returned home in 1979 to do precisely that. ’I found, Bangladesh wasn’t really for me,’ he said, returning to the UK to become part of his family’s restaurant business--they ran 11 restaurants’where Ali ’managed some key areas and developing the business.’
’Then I thought of starting my own restaurant and this is how the journey began. I love my profession. My real challenge is to be the chain maker, not the chain manager,’ he told us. What really drove him was doing things which other people cannot do. For Ali, the biggest challenge was to work with politicians to make them understand what the restaurant industry in Britain needed and addressing concerns over the laws which govern it.
’My visit to India is to see how you are doing in terms of restaurant development, to see the challenges of the industry here’, he said explaining his visit adding that the main reason he was in India was to ask for help in terms of skill development. ’I suggested to the government policy makers (in UK), to understand our problems and organise, without taxpayer burden. I want to take the huge skills available in India, on a temporary basis with British government approval, to upskilling our guys in UK. It would be a great help to keep the British high street spicy,’ he said, adding that he wanted to speak to officials in India about where to find the right skilled persons.
The biggest challenge in the UK, he told us was the drain in the kitchen. ’There is no problem with front of the house, we can train anyone to do that, but the cooks and chefs who work in the kitchen are irreplaceable,’ he said, simply because many are families involved in the business where the younger generations want something different. Ali was enthusiastic after speaking with restauranteurs and the NRAI during the Indian Restaurant Congress in New Delhi, where BW Hotelier interviewed him.
The author is Executive Editor at BW Hotelier.
BW HOTELIER caught up with Enam Ali, (see photo) British businessman of Bangladeshi descent and the founder of the British Curry Awards in 2005. Ali is also a restauranteur extraordinaire who has also advised the UK government when he was a member of the Home Office Hospitality sector advisory panel in 2008.
We began by asking Ali how he began in the restaurant trade. Ali, began by explaining that he wanted to become a lawyer and arrived in the UK in 1974 with that purpose, but through various circumstances, he found himself finishing a hospitality management course in Bournemouth.
’I thought I would finish my course and go back to Bangladesh to become a big hotelier,’ he told BW Hotelier. In fact, he returned home in 1979 to do precisely that. ’I found, Bangladesh wasn’t really for me,’ he said, returning to the UK to become part of his family’s restaurant business--they ran 11 restaurants’where Ali ’managed some key areas and developing the business.’
’Then I thought of starting my own restaurant and this is how the journey began. I love my profession. My real challenge is to be the chain maker, not the chain manager,’ he told us. What really drove him was doing things which other people cannot do. For Ali, the biggest challenge was to work with politicians to make them understand what the restaurant industry in Britain needed and addressing concerns over the laws which govern it.
’My visit to India is to see how you are doing in terms of restaurant development, to see the challenges of the industry here’, he said explaining his visit adding that the main reason he was in India was to ask for help in terms of skill development. ’I suggested to the government policy makers (in UK), to understand our problems and organise, without taxpayer burden. I want to take the huge skills available in India, on a temporary basis with British government approval, to upskilling our guys in UK. It would be a great help to keep the British high street spicy,’ he said, adding that he wanted to speak to officials in India about where to find the right skilled persons.
The biggest challenge in the UK, he told us was the drain in the kitchen. ’There is no problem with front of the house, we can train anyone to do that, but the cooks and chefs who work in the kitchen are irreplaceable,’ he said, simply because many are families involved in the business where the younger generations want something different. Ali was enthusiastic after speaking with restauranteurs and the NRAI during the Indian Restaurant Congress in New Delhi, where BW Hotelier interviewed him.
The author is Executive Editor at BW Hotelier.
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