SPICY Tadka in Festival Place has been named 'Restaurant of the Year' at the National Curry Awards.
The popular Indian restaurant was awarded the title for the final of South East category of the English Curry Awards 2023.
The awards ceremony took place on Monday, October 16, at the House of Lords in Westminster, London.
Owners of the Spicy Tadka, Gagan Joshi and Ram Ampili, were presented with the prestigious award by the chairman of the 1922 Committee, MP Sir Graham Brady, and event director Ahad Chowdhury.
Speaking after receiving the award, Gagan told the Gazette: "It's a wonderful feeling, it defined that we are doing something good by serving authentic Indian food in the town of Basingstoke.
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"We started very small at the Great Western pub and since then Basingstoke has loved our food and is enjoying the authenticity, and for the last eight or nine years we've been running from Festival Place, and we are grateful to all our loyal customers.
"We like every customer who walks through our door to leave feeling happy.
"We ensure to use fresh, quality raw materials, we don't cut corners.
"Our chefs do magic with their fingers, most of them have over 10 years experience.
"We grind all our spices ourselves, we don't buy spices from anywhere.
"Our floor team are well trained and understand the needs of the customer, they will always recommend dishes based on their tastes."
Ram told the Gazette: "It's been a journey for us.
"One of the key elements to our success is the understanding between me and Gagan, as partners in business we have trust and understanding for each other.
"It's also the start of the journey of winning awards, we've previously been nominated but now we've actually won which is a really great feeling."
For those who haven't visited the national award-winning restaurant, Gagan has a few suggestions for what to try: "If you like lamb, we recommend trying our Rajasthani laal maas, and if you like chicken then the chicken tikka lababdar is a lovely dish, and for vegetarians, we have dal makhani and Punjabi chole masala.
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"We have something for everyone, gluten-free, nut-free and even vegan options."
Ram added: "One thing we have that stands out is our buffets. We do weekend buffets with a massive volume of dishes, from a lot of different regions in India, we have upcoming Halloween and Diwali buffets very soon."
Gagan wanted to offer his praises to customers, and said: "We would like to thank our customers who have been with us throughout recent times, we are very fortunate to be supported by a huge number of customers who are loyal to us and have supported us in good and bad times."
Event director Ahad Chowdhury said: "This is the fourth National Curry Awards and all have been hosted here [House of Lords] it's a prestigious event and the restaurants deserve to be recognised properly.
"I believe the restaurant sector is a good future, it allows people to be their own boss, and holding the awards here will help to inspire younger generations.
"It is the customers who make these businesses successful, because of the customers, restaurants like the Spicy Tadka can't be here."
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