Indian restaurants

Shafi's Restaurant

About: 

Shafi's Restaurant was established in the 1920s by two brothers, Yassim and Rahim Mohammed, who had come to study in Britain. They noticed a lack of Indian restaurants, bought a café and turned it into a restaurant. This, along with Veeraswamy's, was one of the first Indian restaurants established in Britain. The restaurant was a comforting home from home for lonely Indian students. The restaurant was taken over by Dharam Lal Bodua and managed by an Englishman who employed among others Israil Miah and Gofur Miah, who went on to run their own restaurants later.

Soon after her arrival in Britain in 1947, Attia Hosain went to Shafi's because it was a meeting point for Indians. It was patronised not only by fellow Indians but also English people, especially those who had served in the Raj.

Example: 

From Attia Hosain, 'Of Memories and Meals', Loaves and Wishes: Writers Writing on Food, ed. by Antonia Till (London: Virago, 1992), 141-6

Secondary works: 

Adams, Caroline, Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers: Life Stories of Pioneer Sylhetti Settlers in Britain (London: THAP, 1987)

Basu, Shrabani, Curry in the Crown (London: Indus, 1999)

Basu, Shrabani, Curry: The Story of the Nation's Favourite Dish (Stroud: Sutton, 2003)

Choudhury, Yousuf, The Roots and Tales of the Bangladeshi Settlers (Birmingham: Sylheti Social History Group, 1993)

Collingham, E. M., Curry: A Biography (London: Chatto & Windus, 2005)

Grove, Peter, and Grove, Colleen, Curry Culture (London: Collins & Brown, 2003)

Hosain, Attia, 'Of Memory and Meals', in Antonia Till (ed.),  Loaves and Wishes: Writers Writing on Food (London: Virago, 1992), pp.141-6.

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Content: 

A description of Shafi's by one of its patrons.

Date began: 
01 Jan 1920
Extract: 

I began to go more often to a restaurant called Shafi's because it was a rendezvous for Indians - visitors, expatriates and students alike. For all who came from a country where food and companionship went naturally together, Shafi's was like being back home. The owner was host, friend and confidant to all who came, whether to eat, or just to relax and talk.

Location

Shafi's Restaurant
18 Gerrard Street
London, W1D 6
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

Indian Catering Company

About: 

The Indian Catering Company was managed by Nizam-ud-din, who also established the Eastern Cafe near Chancery Lane.

Secondary works: 

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Location

Indian Catering Company
36 Ledbury Road
W11 2AG
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

Taj Mahal Restaurant

About: 

The Taj Mahal restaurant opened in 1937 in West Street, Cambridge Circus, London. Its central location made it a popular eatery. It is not known when the establishment closed.

Date began: 
01 Jan 1937
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Archive source: 

Advert for the Restaurant in Indian Students: A Quarterly Journal of the Federation of the Indian Students' Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, 1.1, May-July 1937, L/PJ/12/475, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain: 

Veeraswamy's

About: 

The Veeraswamy Restaurant was established by Edward Palmer in 1926 in Regent Street. Palmer was a retired Indian Army officer and in 1924-5 had run the Indian section at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley, where his company, E. P. Veeraswamy & Co., Indian Food Specialists, sold spices, chutneys and curry pastes at the café.

Palmer's grandfather, William Palmer, was married to an Indian woman (who may have been named Veeraswamy) and founded the banking house Palmer & Co. in Hyderabad in the late eighteenth century. Edward Palmer's great-grandfather also served in India and married the Indian princess Begum Fyze Baksh.

Veeraswamy's waiters were imported from India and the food was firmly Raj: duck vindaloo and Madras curry. One of its employees was Nawab Ali, who went on to found other Indian restaurants throughout the UK. It catered to Anglo-Indians, retired civil servants, fashionable Londoners, and royalty such as the Prince of Wales and the Prince of Denmark.

The British tradition of drinking beer with a curry is said to have originated at Veeraswamy's when the Prince of Denmark visited and decided to send a barrel of Carlsberg to the restaurant every Christmas thereafter.

In 1935, the restaurant was sold to Sir William Steward, who ran the place for forty years. Veeraswamy's is still in existence today.

Published works: 

Veeraswamy, E. P., Indian Cookery: For Use in All Countries (London: Herbert Joseph, 1936)

Secondary works: 

Adams, Caroline, Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers: Life Stories of Pioneer Sylhetti Settlers in Britain (London: THAP, 1987)

Basu, Shrabani, Curry in the Crown (London: Indus, 1999)

Basu, Shrabani, Curry: The Story of the Nation's Favourite Dish (Stroud: Sutton, 2003)

Choudhury, Yousuf, The Roots and Tales of the Bangladeshi Settlers (Birmingham: Sylheti Social History Group, 1993)

Choudhury, Yousuf, Sons of the Empire: Oral History from the Bangladeshi Seamen who Served on British Ships during the 1939-45 War (Birmingham: Sylheti Social History Group, 1995)

Collingham, Elizabeth M., Curry: A Biography (London: Chatto & Windus, 2005)

Grove, Peter, and Grove, Colleen, Curry Culture (London: Collins & Brown, 2003)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1926
Precise date began unknown: 
Y

Location

101 Regent Street
London, W1B 4RS
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi

About: 

Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi was born in a village in Sylhet, the eldest of three brothers and a sister. His father was forced to sell his land after spending much of his income on educating his sons, and the family lived in impoverished circumstances. To escape a life of hardship and help his family, Qureshi decided to follow the example of many of his fellow Sylhetis and try to get work on a ship with a view to migrating to America or Britain. With this in mind, he left for Calcutta in 1934. After various failed attempts, he finally managed to escape from a ship docked at Tilbury, making his way to east London where he found lodgings with other recently arrived Sylhetis.

Qureshi began his working life in Britain selling chocolates in pubs. He soon moved on to working in various Indian restaurants (including the Bengal Restaurant in Percy Street) and, in 1938, opened his first restaurant, Dilkush Delight, in Windmill Street, Soho. By 1944, he owned a different restaurant off Charlotte Street. This became known as the 'India Centre' because numerous politically active South Asians congregated there for meetings. During this period, Qureshi himself became involved in political and welfare activities concerning the South Asian community in London. He was an active member of the Hindustani Social Club and co-founder (with Ayub Ali) and President of the Indian Seamen's Welfare League. He also attended some India League meetings. A Muslim, Qureshi worshipped at the East London Mosque and helped form the London Muslim League with Abbas Ali.

Qureshi married on his first return trip to Sylhet in 1946 and eventually, in the 1970s, brought his wife and children to England where the family remained.

Example: 

Adams, Caroline, Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers (London: THAP, 1987), pp. 140–77

Date of birth: 
25 Sep 1915
Content: 

This is a transcript of an oral narrative by Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi in which he recounts his reasons for migration to Britain and the conditions and events of his life after migration.

Connections: 

Abbas Ali, Ayub Ali, Mushraf Ali, Taslim Ali (early pioneer of facilities for Muslims in Britain), Surat Alley, Syed Tofussil Ally, Mulk Raj Anand (both attended inaugural meeting of East End branch of India League), B. B. Ray Chaudhuri (on the executive committee of the Indian Seamen's Welfare League), Abdul Hamid (barrister and involved with Indian Seamen's Welfare League), Kundan Lal Jalie, Krishna Menon, Narayana Menon (both attended inaugural meeting of East End branch of India League), Mr Nandev (helped him out with restaurant), Mr Rahim and Mr Yassim (original owners of Shafi’s Restaurant), Said Amir Shah (both attended inaugural meeting of East End branch of India League), Maharaja of Siraikullah (served him and his party at restaurant), Dr C. B. Vakil (on the executive committee of the Indian Seamen's Welfare League).

Extract: 

In 1938, I saved enough to open my own restaurant - in Windmill Street. I can claim that I was the first Sylhetti man to own a restaurant...At that time most of the customers were Indians...We used to get English customers too - those English people who had been in the Indian Civil Service and all that...Then the student community from Bengal, they started coming, because they knew that they wouldn't have any worry for shelter, and they could find work as waiters, and at the same time they used to take admission in the Law Institutes, or in any institution. Students from all Bengal - East and West, Hindu and Muslim. So all the credit goes to that fellow who started the restaurants.

Secondary works: 

Adams, Caroline, Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers (London: THAP, 1987)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

 

Relevance: 

The above extract emphasizes the pioneering work of early working-class South Asian migrants and how they impacted on British culture through the establishment of South Asian restaurants which, even in this early period, were frequented by the British as well as by South Asians. It also hints at the cross-class interactions among South Asians (waiters and students) and at the role of Indian restaurants as community meeting places where people congregated to socialize and sometimes to mobilize politically. The fact that the two restaurants owned by Qureshi were in Soho indicates the presence of working-class South Asians in the very heart of London.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/455, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/646, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

 Attended Indian Seamen’s Welfare League meetings

 Attended Hindustani Social Club meetings and events

City of birth: 
Patli-Qureshbari, Jaganathpur, Sylhet
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Bangladesh
Other names: 

Moina Meah

Locations

Percy Street
London, W1T 2DA
United Kingdom
51° 31' 6.006" N, 0° 8' 0.6072" W
Dilkush Delight
Windmill Street
London, W1T 2JU
United Kingdom
51° 31' 8.0904" N, 0° 8' 1.194" W
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1936
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1936-46, 19??-67, 1975/6-

Meary James Tambimuttu

About: 

A Sri Lankan Tamil from an affluent English-speaking Roman Catholic family, M. J. Tambimuttu arrived in Britain at the age of 22. Having already published three volumes of poetry in Ceylon, he soon immersed himself in the literary world of London’s Soho and Fitzrovia. Within little more than a year of his arrival he had founded the magazine Poetry London (1939–51) with the writer and musician Anthony Dickins. While Dickins' involvement quickly diminished, Tambimuttu edited the first fourteen volumes of the magazine and a number of books, as well as writing his own poetry. In July 1943, with the backing of publishers Nicholson and Watson (on the recommendation of T. S. Eliot who was an admirer of his), he established Editions Poetry London, which published contemporary verse and prose, as well as art books, in hard cover. Tambimuttu was also a regular participant in the BBC radio series Talking to India during the Second World War. A man of charisma as well as a talented editor, he had an array of friends and acquaintances with whom he enjoyed the pubs and cafes of Fitzrovia.

Tambimuttu returned to Sri Lanka in 1949 then moved to New York in 1952 where he launched the magazine Poetry London–New York (1956–60) as well as continuing to publish short fiction and poetry of his own, and lecturing at the Poetry Center and New York University. In 1968 he returned to London where he founded a final magazine, Poetry London/Apple Magazine, which had just two issues, and a publishing company, the Lyrebird Press. He died of heart failure in London in 1983.

Published works: 

Songs of Youth (1932)

Tone Patterns (Colombo: Slave Island Printing Works, 1936)

Out of this War (London: The Fortune Press, 1941)

(ed.) Poetry in Wartime (London: Faber, 1942)

Natarajah: A Poem for Mr T. S. Eliot (London: Editions Poetry London, 1948)

(ed.) India Love Poems (New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1954)

(ed.) Poems from Bangla Desh: The Voice of a New Nation (London: The Lyrebird Press, 1972)

See also editions of Poetry London and Williams (below) for work by Tambimuttu.

Example: 

Tambimuttu, M. J., ‘Fitzrovia’, Harpers & Queen (February 1975), pp. 223, 225, 229–30, 232

Date of birth: 
15 Aug 1915
Content: 

Tambimuttu recounts his arrival in London in 1938, and immersion in the bohemian literary world of ‘Fitzrovia’ and Soho.

Connections: 

Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, W. H. Auden, George Barker, Z. A. Bokhari, Hsiao Ch'ienVenu Chitale, Alex Comfort, Ananda Coomaraswamy (his uncle), Walter de la Mare, G. V. Desani, Indira Devi, Anthony Dickins, Keith Douglas, Cedric Dover, Lawrence Durrell, T. S. Eliot, William Empson, Gavin Ewart, E. M. Forster, G. S. Fraser, Lucian Freud, Diana Gardner, David Gascoyne, Michael Hamburger, Barbara Hepworth, Augustus John, Fredoon Kabraji, Alun Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, Louis MacNeice, Richard March, Una Marson, Narayana Menon, Henry Miller, Henry Moore, Anais Nin, George Orwell, Mervyn Peake, Paul Potts, Kathleen Raine, Balachandra Rajan, Herbert Read, Keidrych Rhys, Francis Scarfe, Elizabeth Smart, Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Stephen Spender, Marie Stopes, Alagu Subramaniam, Graham Sutherland, Dylan Thomas.

Contributions to periodicals: 
Extract: 

On the third day after my arrival in London in January 1938…I had already discovered Fitzrovia, and settled down at 45 Howland Street, maybe in the same house where Verlaine and Rimbaud had once conducted their stormy love affair…

...

The first friendships in a new environment have a special quality and meaning and it was at Peter’s party that I first ran across Anthony Dickins, Gavin Ewart, Stephen Spender and Laurence Clark, whose poems I have consistently printed in Poetry London although he was too J. C. Squire-ish and Georgian for most editors...

...

By the end of February 1939, when the first number of Poetry London had been in the bookstalls for a month, with the special souvenir cover drawn by Hector Whistler, nephew of James McNeill Whistler, who came to our chiefly Sibelius musicals at 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning with a steaming pot of hot coffee in his hand…our humble dwelling in Whitfield Street had been visited by many celebrities of today. We had a pre-publication visit from Larry Durrell and his brother Gerald…

...

And thus it was that I became a true Fitzrovian like my friends Augustus John, Roy Campbell, Gavin Maxwell, Elizabeth Smart and Kathleen Raine, all of whom used to visit Fitzrovia with me. But I had it in my soul a very long time ago.

Secondary works: 

Beckett, Chris, ‘Tambimuttu and the Poetry London Papers at the British Library: Reputation and Evidence’, Electronic British Library Journal (2009): http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2009articles/article9.html

Maclaren-Ross, J., Memoirs of the Forties (London: Alan Ross Ltd, 1965)

Poologasingham, P., Poet Tambimuttu: A Profile (Colombo: P. Tambimuttu, 1993)

Ranasinha, Ruvani, South Asian Writers in Twentieth-Century Britain: Culture in Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

Williams, Jane (ed.), Tambimuttu: Bridge Between Two Worlds (London: Peter Owen, 1989)

Relevance: 

Tambimuttu’s descriptions of meetings and friendships with a range of well known literary figures, such as Gavin Ewart, Stephen Spender, Anais Nin and William Empson, highlight the extent of his immersion in London’s literary life and suggest an acceptance of him on the part of his British friends and associates – and perhaps also a willingness to adapt to a different culture on the part of Tambimuttu. Passing, indirect allusions to his racial difference or ‘foreignness’ are either humorous or, when he retrospectively describes himself as ‘the pioneer’ of the ‘eternal migration and intermingling of cultures’ (perhaps with some exaggeration), almost boastful; and, rather than a sense of cultural dislocation on migration, there is reference to the continuity of his life in ‘bohemian’ London with his early years in Ceylon.

Archive source: 

Meary James Tambimuttu Mss, Add. MS 88907, British Library, St Pancras

Keith Douglas Mss, Add. Mss 53773-53776, 56355-56360, 60585-60586, 61938-61939, British Library, St Pancras

Richard March Mss, Add.  MS 88908, British Library, St Pancras

Reginald Moore Mss, British Library, St Pancras

Northwestern University, Chicago

Poetry London-New York records, Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York

Contributors' Talks File 1 (1941-62), BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park, Reading 

City of birth: 
Atchuvely, Jaffna Peninsula
Country of birth: 
Ceylon
Current name country of birth: 
Sri Lanka
Other names: 

Thurairajah Tambimuttu

Tambi

Location

45 Howland Street
London, W1T 4BL
United Kingdom
51° 31' 17.4756" N, 0° 8' 15.0792" W
Date of death: 
22 Jun 1983
Location of death: 
London
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1938
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1938–49, 1968–83

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