All a bit standard at Durbar

In an article on its leader page, The Times declared that "the head chef of the humble Durbar Tandoori in Bayswater has a better claim than the hard men of haute cuisine (referring back to a comparison with Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White) to be the standard bearer of 21st century British cooking."

Shamin Syed, chef of DURBAR TANDOORI, was last week judged International Indian Chef of the Year at a competition open to amateurs and professionals held in Edinburgh. The argument is a sound one when you consider that more than 175 million meals are served each year in Britain's 8,000-plus curry houses and that, according to The Times, the curry industry now employs more Britons than coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel put together; it accounts for 30 pence of every pound spent on food.

Realising that this hero was cooking just 20 minutes away from where I live, I rushed to find the restaurant's telephone number in the guides. The Good Food Guide, Time Out, Harden's, Zagat, The Rough Guide to London Restaurants compiled by our own curry-loving Charles Campion, even the Curry Club Guides had no mention of Durbar. The restaurant was, however, listed in the telephone book. I reserved a table for four taking with me my husband, my son and a friend he had met while at university in Manchester.

The Durbar (established 1956) is a small, cosy curry house decorated with painted brass trays and, at mezzanine level, fretwork screens with blue lights behind which may be supposed to have some reference to the native ruler's court described by the restaurant's name. The menu is from the standard three-pot school of curry cooking embellished with dishes from Goa and Bengal and some Parsee dhansak and pathia. King prawn puri, lamb sheekh kebab and onion bhajee were decent enough first courses. In the main course, we ordered two of the dishes that had secured Mr Syed's triumph in the competition - jeera chicken and bhindhi bhajee - plus fish Ceylon (listed under specialities of Goa), balti lamb and duck tikka jalfrezi. The diminutive portions served shocked the young men who said that a restaurant behaving that way in Manchester would be laughed out of town. The bhindhi (okra) was notably crisp and fresh but we never did discern from the two little reddish stews which was the chicken and which was the duck. Balti lamb was at least recognisable from its bowl-shaped serving dish.

It is possible, indeed probable, that International Indian Chef of the Year made more effort in the Edinburgh competition than he (or his fellow cooks) do on a Wednesday night in Bayswater, but now that Mr Syed produces a visitor's book for customers to sign in recognition of his achievement, he should look to his standard recipes and also portion sizes. Meanwhile you might do better by joining the Royal Navy where runner-up Kevin Williams from Cardigan cooks, or get a job on the North Alwyn oil platform where Rajiv Pathak, another finalist, keeps the crew happy with chicken tikka masala.

Durbar
Hereford Road, London, W2 4AA