Curry Loses It’s Heat
00.02 A Bengali chef cooks up a curry in an East London restaurant.
He's one of thousands of immigrants prepared to work long hours for a meagre living in the west. For many, the curry houses are their first port of call, providing ready available work.

00.06 And the restaurants are extremely popular, offering a cheap meal out. The Bengalis have adapted the cuisine of the sub continent, producing dishes such as tandoori chicken and vegetable korma, which have become England's favourite meal out.

00.31 They've made their living from catering since first arriving in Britain in the 1970s when the state of Bangladesh was created out of East Pakistan.

00.39 Altogether, more than 300 thousand live in the UK, making it Europe's largest Bangladeshi community.

00.48 This area of East London is known as Bangla Town, the streets are lined with curry houses.

00.51 The restaurants have always relied on cheap or free labour. And with extended families and apparently a limitless source of immigrants, there's been no shortage of workers. But times are changing, and it's predicted many won't survive.

01.07 Restaurant owners, who've worked all hours building up these businesses are not prepared to see their children working for a pittance.
01:18 They say they've sacrificed themselves for their children's education, and want their kids to have traditional professional jobs.

01.30 Mahtab Chowdhury still shops locally for the food served in his three restaurants.
He says many restaurant owners are under pricing themselves and won't be able to survive if they have to pay realistic rates for labour. Mr Chowdhury warns that the traditional model of the Bangladeshi family-run restaurant is under threat.

01.51 MAHTAB CHOWDHURY, TREASURER OF THE BANGLADESHI CATERERS' ASSOCIATION:
"The third generation are going to be a professional, not everybody but the majority of the children are getting a better education, so the small restaurants they cannot afford to bring in professional people and pay the six pound or seven pounds an hour will be difficult, so slowly slowly this industry will be died down."

02.23 Aminul Ahmed is a typical third generation success story. A medical student at Cambridge University, he's currently doing practical work on the wards of London's Kings College Hospital. Aminul says he never had any intention of following in his father Gyas Udin's footsteps.

02.40 He arrived in Britain in 1959, working as a waiter before setting up his own restaurant. Although Aminul regularly visits his parents at weekends, he has higher aspirations, and his father is only too happy.

02.54 He's worked hard to support his children who have found successful careers in pharmacy, dentistry, engineering and medicine. The restaurant business is poorly paid and involves long hours.

03.12 He's proud of what he's achieved, but he's pleased his children haven't followed him into the business.

03.17 GYAS UDDIN AHMED, RESTAURANT OWNER:
"I'm happy about this because in the restaurant it's very long hours to work, in the morning from 9 or 10 in the morning to 12 or 1 o'clock at night, and even later than that, but in the office shorter period so it's alright."

03.41 For Aminul a career in the professions always beckoned.

03.47 AMINUL AHMED, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY MEDICAL STUDENT AND SON OF RESTAURANT OWNER:
"I think it was a question of what I could move onto from the restaurant trade because for my parents it was always a stepping stone, they wanted to get us educated, they wanted to make sure we got professional jobs and the restaurant trade was the only thing they knew when they came to this country and my dad came here almost 40 years ago, and he's just moving on from there, just moving up the social class scale."

04.11 His father is set to retire soon, and the restaurant may well be sold or managers put in to run it.

04.17 Tighter immigration controls in Britain are also sounding the death knell for the traditional curry house. Immigrants from Bangladesh have provided a cheap pool of labour for the restaurants, enabling them to produce low cost food. But with visa restrictions, restaurant owners are finding it more difficult to get staff. Chefs and kitchen hands and waiters are now in great demand.

04.48 Most days Azmal Preem strolls down to the local employment agency in a bid to find staff.

04.56 He's looking for a chef and waiters.

05.02 AZMAL PREEM, RESTAURANT OWNER:
"I need staff, I need tandoori chef, chef, I need kitchen worker, need waiter, mainly waiter is more necessary than anything because young generation don't want to work in service job, they want computer and this and that."

05.18 Banglatown is often the first stop for immigrants entering Britain, so this agency is contacted by restaurants throughout the country.

05.26 But demand far exceeds supply.

05.32 SHAHAGIR BAKTH FARUK, SHAHNAN EMPLOYMENT BUREAU:
"At this moment we have a lot of vacancies. The people are ringing me non stop to supply them staff, but we have got no staff at all and I think this is a very acute problem. We've been facing this problem for the last few years and we've informed the government, the department of employment as well, and we are not getting any help to get the new recruits from Bangladesh."

05.59 UPSOUND

06.02 Siraj Ali owns four successful curry houses, including this one The Maharaja.

He has only one son with whom the curry connection exists - but not in the traditional way.

06.16 Ansar's a stock broker. After spending a couple of years working in the City, London's financial district, he now makes his money buying and selling shares at home.

Ansar's also involved in the curry business - but he has no interest in getting his hands dirty.

06.33 He's designed a web site for the Maharaja, and he is now setting up a site which enables customers to book a table at any curry house in Britain.

06.46 ANSAR ALI, SON OF RESTAURANT OWNER:
"As far as going into the restaurant business is concerned, it's not something that I would have the ambition to do because of the long hours, I mean it's very hard work and I have seen how much hard work it is, but I have ambitions to do my own business in the new companies like the technology and internet business."

07.07 These streets used to be home to first generation Jewish and French Hugenot communities. Once they were successful they moved on. Now the Bengalis seem set to follow in their footsteps.

07.22 ENDS