Varma creates new 'Chicken Tikka Masala'

Gourmet Restaurant Group’s Andy Varma has created a new dish that is hoping to bump Chicken Tikka Masala from the top spot as the UK’s most popular curry.

Varma, corporate chef and chief operating officer of the group behind Tiffinbites, Vama and Bombay Bicycle Club, won the search for a new curry to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Chicken Tikka Masala.

Varma’s dish – Palak Aur Methi Murgi (Garlic and ginger flavoured spinach and fenugreek chicken) - was announced winner of the New New 60 Year Dish Competition, run during National Curry Week.

Indian chefs were challenged with creating a new dish that would prove to be as popular as the original in 60 years’ time.

Varma said: “The standard of entries was clearly very high so I’m especially pleased to have received this award. As a business, the Gourmet Restaurant Group is committed to good quality, authentic and healthy Indian food, so this win demonstrates an appetite for delicious and waistline-friendly dishes and a move away from ‘classically British’ curries.”

One in seven curries sold in the UK is reportedly Chicken Tikka Masala. Its origins are disputed, but it is claimed the dish was first created in 1948 at the Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi as Butter Chicken before it was introduced to Britain where it became known as Chicken Tikka Masala.

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