To parody a footballing chant, it seems that the government are continuing to procrastinate over the obvious chef shortage in curry establishments across the length and breadth of the country.
Apparently a group of 100 curry houses have lobbied the Home Secretary to allow 12 month visas for South Asian chefs to come over to the UK to train home grown ones. The only thing I take issue with is that, as long as they can prove a proper culinary accreditation, they should be allowed to stay.
This is because the real issue is that unless the wages of a curry house chef are almost doubled to £35,000 plus there is no chance of ‘home grown’ youngsters coming into a suburban curry house serving archetypal ‘British Indian Restaurant’ dishes. Additionally, there is no culinary kudos and let’s face it the working hours required aren’t going to be attractive to somebody brought up in the UK.
Amber Rudd
Of course, Amber Rudd will say that curry houses need to pay the market rate but there again she personally doesn’t need to care if today’s £7 Chicken Tikka Masala becomes tomorrow’s £14 priced meal. Yet, out of the window goes a night out for the working man!
On the latter, he was spot on as the likelihood of a chef being paid £30k per annum in a typical suburban curry house is unrealistic … unless customers are willing to pay Michelin Star prices for their weekly curry fix. On the former, he’s probably being wildly optimistic because unless the restaurant is prestigious or high profile, the chances of a youngster wanting to work in a cramped hot kitchen are, one would think, very slim.
