Restaurants demand 'Curry College'

Restaurateurs and ministers are gathering to discuss a staffing crisis in curry kitchens, following a tightening of immigration rules last year.

Alongside the G20 summit and only slightly overshadowed by it, the government is holding an "ethnic chef summit" on Thursday. 

This is a chance for ministers to meet Indian, Bengali and other restaurateurs who say the new rules mean they are struggling to find skilled chefs. 

The curry industry is worth £3.5bn every year - and it's demanding that the government set up an official college of curry, with a new qualification in Asian cuisine. 

"If they're training good chefs it would be easy for me to give them a job. Because I can see a certificate, I know which college they've been too," says Abdul Azad in his small office, just off Brick Lane in east London.

From here, he runs an agency that supplies chefs to Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants all over the UK. 

"They keep ringing me saying 'Please, can you find me a chef?'" 

"Sometimes I say it's very difficult to find a chef because some of them are not professional, so it's very hard for me," he says. 

"I open 10.30am and I finish at 7pm and I get at least 150 calls every single day. I get a headache every day, and end up taking four or five paracetamols." 

'Very easy' 

Mr Azad's office is filled with anxious-looking hopefuls. 

But he says he turns most of them away, because they're illegal immigrants or failed asylum seekers - and in the last year there has been an increase in police raids on restaurants suspected of employing them.

But one man here looks very relaxed about finding his next job. Jamil Ahmed says he's been working as a chef in Britain, legally, for 17 years. 

"I've come here to get a new job," he says, "and it's very easy. There are so many Indian restaurants in the UK, but you don't find many chefs who are here legally and who are skilful." 

That's the nub of the problem that brought about 3,000 Indian, Bangladeshi, Turkish and Chinese restaurateurs onto the streets of London to protest last year. 

The new immigration points system had suddenly created a shortage of chefs, they said. 

A meeting with Gordon Brown at Downing Street followed. But they say little progress was made. 

Chef shortage 

"They keep being told that something, somewhere is going to be done to help their industry, and it's not," says Anne Main, Conservative MP for St Albans, who got a Westminster Hall debate held on the issue last month. 

"They're saying that restaurants are closing because of a lack of skilled chefs." 

Enam Ali, chairman of the Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs, says 150 curry houses have closed this year. 

But it's not only due to the shortage of chefs. The weak pound has made imported foodstuffs, oils and spices more expensive for Asian restaurants, and thanks to the recession restaurants everywhere are feeling the pinch.

But the industry says this makes the ethnic chefs summit all the more crucial. 

Bajloor Rashid, head of the Bangladesh Caterers' Association, has drawn up proposals for a curry chef college to be established in London with a new specialist qualification in Asian cuisine. 

He'll be putting the plans to ministers at the summit. 

"We need £1.5m for three years. Initial set-up is about a million pounds, and the rest is for teaching around 1,000 trainees. The skills are important, but so is recognition," he says. 

"It takes about five, six years to become a chef. Many of our children are now studying to become solicitors or barristers instead. 

"The college will give chefs recognition. Being a curry chef needs to be attractive, it needs the glamour of Gordon Ramsey." 

Training responsibility 

The idea would also be that large, leading restaurants would offer placements to students who would be studying for the new qualification. 

The government says it is willing to listen to the industry's ideas on Thursday, but education minister Sian Simon seems sceptical of the need for a specialist college. 

"If they say they've got a shortage then we need to help them train more staff through the means that are available to the rest of the British restaurant industry - apprenticeships, NVQs, and the government's Train to Gain scheme," he says. 

"Training is also a responsibility of employers, and perhaps if the ethnic restaurants have been over-reliant in previous years on importing labour they will need help in developing training practices that other restaurants have been doing better for longer." continues here

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