‘Curry might have come from India, but balti was born in Birmingham,” says Zaf Hussain. The 40-year-old’s family business, Shababs, has been on this site on the bustling Ladypool Road in south-east Birmingham since his father opened it in 1987. Settled in between the Indian sweet shops and south Asian bridal boutiques, Shababs is one of the last remaining restaurants in the city that still makes an authentic balti curry – a dish that, if Hussain and other campaigners have their way, could be officially certified as an element of Britain’s living heritage inventory, a preservation scheme established in 2025 by Unesco and the British government.
The problem, says Hussain, is that “people don’t know what the real thing is any more”. True balti, he says, is all about “the bowl in which it’s cooked and served”. The dish is cooked in a steel bowl on a high heat and served straight away, sizzling on the table for the customer. “Lots of people say they do balti, but they actually cook it in a frying pan before dumping it into a bowl,” says Hussain. “The proper thing is fast and it’s very flavoursome.” Balti has become a catch-all term for anything vaguely resembling curry flavour, from curry-flavoured snacks to mass-produced bottled sauces.
