Rising in the East

There's a new generation of Indian Restaurants springing up all over London suburbs. I guess these are run by the children of the people who came over here from the sub-continent. Instead of flock wallpaper and gilt these tend to be spare and clean in appearance, a bit like Covent Garden watering holes. But the interesting thing is they call themselves Bangla Deshi restaurants, which is the truth that in the past didn't dare speak its name. Of the 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, 7,200 are Bengali and the overwhelming majority of these are from a region of Bangla Desh called Sylhet.