Three Wrexham restaurants shortlisted in Asian Curry Awards

The longlist for this year’s Asian Curry Awards, being held at London’s Grosvenor House on 21st November, has been revealed.

A record number of nominees will now be whittled down by online public vote, before visiting judges determine the eventual winners.

The event, organised by the Asian Catering Federation (ACF), which represents the nation’s 30,000 restaurant and takeaways, are the only accolades acknowledging the full panoply of Asian cuisines, is widely regarded as the sector’s most prestigious.

Landmark GV.Taste Test..IJazz.I Jazz Fine Indian Cuisine Wrexham.

The Maahis, Ijazz, and Black Peppers restaurants are all in the running to be named the best for curries in Wales.

Wrexham is the only town with more than one nominee - and all three have cooked up a storm in competitions.

Ijazz, located on Egerton Street, has been based in the area since October 2016.

Since then, the business has won the Asian Curry Award for best Indian restaurant in Wales in 2018 and 2019.

Maahis was recently named the Best Asian Restaurant North Wales in the fifth Asian Restaurant Awards

Situated on the A483 Ruabon Bypass, Maahis has an impressive number of top mark reviews on Trip Advisor.

The shahi chicken dish from Black Peppers, Wrexham, for the Grand Final of the Tiffin Cup.

In 2019, Black Peppers was nominated for the 2019 Tiffin Cup, a competition to find the UK’s best South Asian restaurant.

The Asian Curry Awards cover all Asian and Oriental cuisines: Bangladeshi, Burmese, Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Middle Eastern, Pakistani, Singaporean, Sri Lankan, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.

This year entries for the elite fine dining category are: Benares, Cinnamon Club, Veeraswamy, Quilon, Amaya, Jamavar, Umi, A. Wong and Nipa Thai – all in London - plus Opheem in Birmingham and Navdhanya in Cambridge.

Maahis in Wrexham was named the Best Asian Restaurant in North Wales. Images: Maahis/Facebook

Spice lovers can vote for their favourites via www.asiancurryawards.com

“The pandemic has been devastating for many hospitality businesses and its worker,” said ACF chairman Yawar Khan,” adding: “These awards will acknowledge the sector’s resilience, innovation in the face of such adversity.”

Andrew Kenny, managing director of Just Eat UK, headline sponsors of the awards said: “Just Eat has worked closely with the Asian Catering Federation for a number of years. As we begin to recover from the pandemic, I’m delighted to celebrate our partnership by helping to recognise the fantastic achievements of those in our industry who have worked tirelessly through the last 18 months and continue to do so.”

In order to survive, some Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants began offering takeaways for the first time. Others sold finish-at-home meal kits, containing pre measured ingredients and recipe instructions. Others operated pop-up delivery kitchens, based in locked-down pubs, or run online cookery courses.