On Friday evening we drove East to one of the most discreetly located Indian capitals, Curry Corner. You find it where you would expect a late night Spar flogging fags under home wired CCTV, or a chippy belching sweet fat odours across Cheltenham’s Coronation Street terraces. Instead you discover ‘The best curry pole to pole’ (or so says Michael Palin). Let’s not stop at the popadoms. Sir Richard Branson is quoted as saying ‘Amazing food, the best I have ever tasted’, Rick Stein ‘Great food’ and even Gordon Ramsay is quoted as stroking Curry Corner’s ego instead of his own.
There is an all purveying sense of innocent pride in this family business. Self titling themselves ‘The First Family of India Cuisine’ these celebrity quotes adorn the outside menu, the indoor menu and the website. Once an exceptionally good value and popular eat in / take away corner Indian, founded in 1977, it has metamorphosed into a grand eating establishment on the back of such recognition. In fact, it’s so grand it can hardly squeeze itself into it end of terrace abode. If more than four people wait for their many tables, you are left standing.
The backlit stone lions outside the entrance and uniformed doorman ignore its modest two up two down provincial town residential surrounds and glint a flavour of London sophistication. The illuminated gold menu pedestal is quite ridiculous, suggesting a pedestrian flow of bankers, tourists and day trippers when any daytime hour can expect no more than perhaps the mother from 33 off to catch the 44 or a few bored kids ambling to the park for footie. Still, it provides a piss point for the drunken students returning to their digs of an evening.
The locals have lost their prize possession of a fantastic value take-away along with their parking spaces to the 4×4 Cotswold set. The self proclaimed King of Indians is not so much disrespectful of its locality, I think it now pretends it does not exist. The once popular commoner has become self appointed king and mixes in different circles now.
The one time I last visited followed its celebrity exposure and you had to book a table weeks in advance. This was – and I am guessing – several years ago. It was buzzing and you could sense the excitement and energy of the staff. It must have been a sensational and almost bewildering time for them. But this evening, and note it was a Friday, it was half empty.
Passion, fame and excitement create the buzz and endless chatter. Back then it had been enjoying recognition as one of the Top 17 Best Local Restaurants on Ramsay’s F word and of course this led to lots of local word of mouth, newspaper features, radio, texts and mobile calls. Inevitably, what we cannot have – what is so popular it is booked up for weeks – we want even more. Human nature. The irony of its featuring on that programme of course is it ejaculated itself from any sense of being local the moment it found its fame beyond its loyal and loving locals who nominated it!
But sustaining and refreshing the excitement and the buzz is the difficult challenge. Their prices are as high as they could possibly take them. Most main courses are over £20. Our meal for four – and we only had two starters and one bottle of wine and a couple of beers – was something over £160.00.
They now risk – or are indeed suffering – the backlash. I took a look at Tripadvisor:
We ordered the chicken curry special & it was nothing more than a gravy and a naan. Honesty, i wouldn’t even pay 7 pounds for it, which they charge 23 pounds. my wife ordered a briyani (again 23 pounds) we had only half as its probably the worst briyani we ever had.
I think they are playing a game with people visiting the area by just advertising heavily on hotel guides. My honest recommendation for anyone interested in going to this place is STAY AWAY.. This place just doesn’t deserve or stand by what it says
I was excited to return and deflated. Perhaps my expectation was too high. But this time the chatter had thinned and I could see the reality: a successful family Indian that had chased its self seeking publicity with ever higher prices and profit and is now in danger of sitting on its own desert island, stranded from its once loving adoring doorstep population as a lonely celebration venue: an expensive cobweb waiting to juice the occasional boated fly.
At the end of the meal, they pass round a guest book. So this is how they attained those quotes from Palin and Branson?! They had fancied a curry during the Cheltenham Literature Festival, enjoyed a drink or two and then been thrust a Guest Book to comment in. Signed and dated, their quote has since emblazoned all. And on looking up the Ramsay quote, well let’s not forget they failed to win the competition on the F word.
You cannot deny the Krori family have passion and create exceptional Indian cuisine, Bangladeshi to be precise. But the storm of chatter their celebrity endorsements unleashed is waning and visitors are reminded of that age old formula: product versus price. I would have liked the menus explained, some seasonals or specials. Instead of the cheap and meaningless truffles given to sweeten the bill, I would have liked to have left table my taste buds lingering passion and creative flair. I would have enjoyed a surprise or two – events to make the evening memorable and to feel Curry Corner is a creative hothouse and more than the contents of their lidded white porcelain pots they piled our tables with, never to return to enquire over the contents.
This all goes to show the power of celebrity endorsement in creating buzz and chatter. The celebrities have left Curry Corner along with the owner’s once notorious modesty, their loyal locals leaving them to unashamedly proclaim their own virtues to a dwindling audience ever more loudly:
The Curry Corner is the oldest and most highly regarded Bangladeshi restaurant in the country.
Run by the Krori family – the First Family of Indian cuisine.
Deliciously decadent food.
Cooked using only the highest quality local ingredients from the lush countryside.
Freshly ground spices.
In a league of its own.
Seriously stylish interior.
Wildly evocative.
Friendly and personal service.
There are not even enough low grade celebrities to go round but
The Chatter Challenge
I have created chatter for many brands, products, businesses and personalities. Celebrity endorsements are a quick route to spark buzz, but there are many means. I will always advise the client that creating the chatter is the easy bit. Sustaining the chatter is more difficult and ultimately returns to the value of the product or person.
When it comes to a restaurant, sooner or later the chatter depends on the diner’s recommendation. Once through the door, they are theirs to make an ally of. Every single diner must be treated to a memorable experience. Once that ethos is established from kitchen to waiting staff, however ordinary the diner, the chatter will look after itself.
I will return to Curry Corner, but I am not excited to and will not be chattering and buzzing about it. And if Jeffrey Archer is quoted singing its praises, I will have a good idea why.
