Spicing Up Britain: How Eating Out Went Exotic Timeshift

In Britain's not too distant past,

our relationship with food was such that, for most people,

going for a meal outside of the home was not

something done for pleasure.

This is one of the new British Restaurants.

They're starting them all over the country to feed people

during war time and - ha, ha - do they feed you!

But the dining-out experience was about to be transformed.

We'd soon get into the habit of eating out.

But first, we needed quite a bit of help and encouragement.

The only spaghetti we knew was like baked beans-y stuff in a tin,

and tomato sauce.

And it wasn't just the spaghetti that changed.

Migrants from Italy, China

and the Indian subcontinent helped us develop a taste for eating out

and, in the process, created meals that we've come to call our own.

Leaving their home countries with the hope of starting a new life

and arriving in Britain with few options, many opened restaurants.

As an immigrant, you have no choice.

You slightly have to take what you get,

you have got to carve out your own niche.

They brought with them new ways of dining and they taught us

how a meal out could be something not to endure but to enjoy.

These restaurants helped to democratise the dining-out

experience by making a meal out accessible, inexpensive and

a touch exotic.

And you just sat there and quaked

and hoped that you ordered the right thing.

And it was pretty red hot. It was really brilliant.

And they built on the British culinary tradition of fusing

tastes from elsewhere to spice up the often dull traditional cuisine.

If you look at our food culture, since time immemorial, we've begged,

borrowed, stolen, used, adapted foods from all over the world.

This is the story of how Britain's food migrants helped us

discover the joys of eating out.

In September 1940,

British people were forced to discover the benefits of eating out.

The government encouraged millions to dine at their communal-run

restaurants - not as an enjoyable treat but as a necessity.

War in Europe and at home had displaced large

sections of the population and caused shortages.

Strict food rationing soon followed.

People often, for the first time,

were living away from home.

Not just soldiers, but, you know, factory workers and so on.

And so therefore, you had to eat out much more.

And I think they weren't necessarily going out to eat for pleasure,

as we think now.

We think of going out to eat now as we're going to go and have a

really nice dish of something interesting or good to eat.

Then I think you went out to eat

because that's where you had to find a meal.

To help ease the pain of rationing and being away from home,

the government opened its own chain of canteens.

It was a smart move and mass catering became an effective

way of conserving precious resources and keeping people fed.

The canteens were to be called Communal Feeding Centres,

but it was decided that British Restaurant sounded more appetizing.

We've had as much as we can eat, with rice pudding

and cups of tea to follow, for four and tups.

And another thing, it helps the country.

It saves food, fuel and time.

At its height, the so-called British Restaurant had

over 2,000 branches and was serving some 600,000 meals a day.

Whilst the fare served was basic,

the British Restaurant brought people together.

And pudding for tuppence provided much needed comfort food.

Because that built on

the egalitarian sort of experiences

of the war, where no matter where you came from,

you had fought together,

you stood shoulder-to-shoulder together, you died together,

this was, you know,

a statement of the new Britain that we were all hoping to build.

This new Britain would be a long time coming.

Peace had been secured in 1945, but the victory was bittersweet.

Rationing would cast a long shadow

and the hardship of food shortages continued.

Rationing sort of ended in 1954.

And why did it take so long?

And you can imagine that the population actually was

somewhat resentful of this process

and felt that it was, shall we say, an imposition.

Even after rationing ended in 1954,

dining out for leisure

remained something restricted to the better-off.

For eating out regularly, that was people with a good

deal of money who would go off to what were always

smart French restaurants.

Yet for those who could afford it,

the range of dining options was still somewhat limited.

If you go back and look at the Good Food Guide of the 1950s,

you'll see how restricted the range of culinary cultures to

choose from actually were.

There had been a restricted diet during the war, there was

a restricted diet after the war.

And so there was very little glory on the plate.

But Britain was changing.

A new optimism was mirrored by an increase in aspiration.

People were hungry for something new,

something better.

The time was right for culinary change,

but the revolution, when it came, would happen in the very British,

very traditional setting of...the pub.

Although converting a pub into a fine dining venue might have

seemed like a very British solution, the idea actually came

from elsewhere,

from two Italians -

brothers Frank and Aldo Berni.

They even gave their new concept their Italian surname -

the Berni Inn.

The first Berni Inn opened in 1955.

Frank and Aldo's timing was perfect.

I think the Berni Brothers were absolutely inspired

in realising just what the British public needed

imm...you know, fairly soon after the war,

when they hadn't had any meat or any sugar or any fresh eggs or

any of the things that we take for granted now.

And they were sick and tired of eating horrible old ration food.

Serving up a dining experience

that was both sophisticated and aspirational -

at a price most could afford -

the Berni Inn seemed to be just what the British had been waiting for.

I had prawn cocktail.

Prawn cocktail followed by steak or chicken.

Prawn cocktail, steak and chips,

and Black Forest gateau.

That was by far the most popular meal you could have there,

but also, it's a great meal! People sort of make fun of me,

but I think a prawn cocktail is absolutely delicious.

Steak to me was a sort of...an aspirational dish.

And the steak at the Berni Inn was really good,

to the extent that I went round the back one night,

in Leicester or Northampton or somewhere

to see what kind of steak

they were cooking.

And I found a box. And it was short sirloin or short rump from Argentina.

So, in other words, they weren't skimping on the raw materials.

The Berni Inn would become THE place to go for a special night out.

I seem to remember it being very much a family thing.

The family were going for a night out for Mum's birthday,

maybe couples would go there for anniversaries and things.

But it was a family atmosphere, as far as I can remember.

If you are talking about my first-ever attempt to take

a date out for a meal,

in places like Northampton, Newark and Darlington,

it would've been at a Berni Inn.

Drinks were an important part of the offer at a Berni Inn.

What was incredibly successful

was the schooner of sherry.

Cos in those days,

people did drink at lunchtime.

It was about that big. Yeah.

The sophisticated thing

was to go and have a schooner of sherry.

And it looked vast.

It was only when you had actually drunk it, in about two mouthfuls,

you realised that the schooner was almost entirely made of glass

and the actually bit inside to put the sherry in was minute.

But they were great big things.

MUSIC: Sh-boom by The Chords

The first-ever Berni was set up in an old coaching inn in Bristol.

For Frank and Aldo Berni, it gave them

a chance to experiment with their new ideas.

The Rummer was the first Berni Inn that was opened.

I think Dad got an understanding

of what customers wanted through working

in catering from a young age,

from seeing how much...

..waste there was.

Cos if you go to a very grand restaurant,

you have...

Because it's part of the sophisticated thing of going

to a restaurant. ..you get a huge choice of exotic foods.

Very expensive if you're a restaurateur to run.

So he saw that actually,

if you just provide steak and chips or chicken in a basket,

um, that's all you had to provide,

and that is precisely what the public came to eat.

# I get no kick from champagne... #

The Berni Brothers had a clear idea of what diners wanted

because they had a lifetime of experience in the catering business.

They had a canny understanding of what would encourage us to eat out.

They were a good foil for each other.

Particularly Dad

was quite a shy man

and quite sort of cerebral.

And he needed time to think and develop things.

Uncle Aldo was not as shy as him

and was much more the front man.

The Berni Brothers' concept - to make quality dining accessible to

all - was one that had been simmering away for many years.

The success of their business had its roots in their Italian origins.

The Brothers Berni had migrated to Britain from the poverty

of rural Italy.

They were one of many Italian families who moved to the

mining valleys of South Wales.

Frank Berni arrived in the 1920s to be with his family in Glamorgan.

He came over by train, not understanding a word of English.

And was on the train with another Italian who

got off the train before him.

And he said, "Well, what do I do when I get there?"

He said, "Just get off the train and say, 'Berni,'

which he did.

And then he worked in the business.

Frank got off his train in Merthyr Tydfil.

His surname was well known in the area because it was above each

of the 48 Italian cafes owned by other members of his family.

But the Berni's family business was just the tip of the iceberg -

there were hundreds of family-run Italian cafes

throughout South Wales.

They didn't go down in the mines because their prowess was

they knew they could cook.

They know... They can make coffee,

they could do this, they could do that.

And opening up a shop...

Because, don't forget, at that particular time,

there weren't pubs around.

It was more of a temperance movement with the Welsh people.

And cafes then became meeting places.

The shops were famed for serving hot coffee, ice cream

and evening meals.

There was one family name that would become the catch-all

name for all these Italian cafes -

Bracchi.

Because they were so popular and so numerous,

they were all called bracchis, with a hint of Welshness -

braaacchis. SHE LAUGHS

There were a lot of Bracchis,

but there were also a lot of other Italians,

like the Contis.

We had 17 cafes at one point.

Popular with the mining community, Italian cafes, or bracchis,

were a familiar sight throughout South Wales.

Because the miners were always down in the pits, it started off with

when they came back up again.

Their throats were sore, they were filthy and thirsty.

And the Italians were very good at ice cream,

so they used to make ice cream.

The cafes developed, I think, into more restaurants, where I can always

remember steak and kidney pies, the steamed steak and kidney pies,

which was a big seller in my father's cafe.

The Italians were very, very good to adapt to the needs,

if you like, of what the South Walians wanted.

You know, people love these places because they were welcoming

and people were very friendly.

Quite often there was music played in the coffee shops

and people singing along.

So the atmosphere would have been great.

Also, you have got to remember, cafe meant sobriety.

Southern Wales had a long Methodist tradition, chapel tradition.

There was a great worry about drinking.

So you could all go out but do something sober.

And your wives could come too without feeling threatened or frightened.

The family only lived at the back of the shop, and so would come in

and... You know, it was pretty much a very friendly

and family atmosphere in the Italian shop.

The Italian-owned cafes of South Wales

played their part in democratising eating out,

long before the government-run British Restaurants.

The Italian emigrants brought with them an informal approach to

dining that working people could enjoy and, crucially, afford.

A lot of Italians, well, they knew what it was like to be hard up.

They didn't used to up the prices of anything.

They used to try and keep all the prices as low as possible

so the working people could afford to just go out and relax.

It was in this Italian catering business where Frank

and Aldo Berni learned their trade and how to identify a target market.

But it would be on a trip to America where Frank Berni found

the inspiration for the new dining concept that

lay behind the idea of the Berni Inn.

Uncle Frank had the idea of steak bars from a trip to America.

When he went to America, he saw the beginnings of that

kind of restaurant where you could multiply a formula.

Frank had noticed that the American steakhouse had strict

but simple rules that allowed

them to multiply quickly.

This principle would be applied to the British pub.

The Berni Brothers kept

their menu simple and trained their own chefs using the Berni Manual.

They could take people

almost off the street

and within a reasonable amount of time, train them

to serve steaks properly cooked,

fish properly cooked. And chips.

That meant that you could go out into other cities

and train people quickly.

-Can I read you a bit out of Bernie's Rules?

-'Of course you can, yeah.'

HE SIGHS Well...

Here is a Berni's Rule Book.

"Ingredients.

"3oz of sirloin steak.

"3oz of gammon steak.

"3 1/2 ounces of lamb cutlet.

"See card number G3-7.

"Watercress - one tenth of a bunch.

"Sausage four minutes.

"Service and presentation.

"Place grilled items, vegetables on a very hot plate and garnish."

This formulaic approach meant that diners knew exactly what to expect.

They were getting very straightforward, simple,

not risky food.

The English, as we know, are very cautious about their food.

And they knew what it was going to cost them.

And that is, I think, what...

It actually encouraged people to start going out.

A - they knew what they were going to eat.

B - they knew what it was going to cost.

And it was hugely attractive.

The concept proved massively effective.

By the 1960s, Berni Inns had expanded nationwide

and were widening their appeal.

'Tennis champions eat at Berni's Inns.

'They like the first-class service.'

All right, let's go.

'But what everyone likes at Berni Inns are the tender Berni's steaks.

'There's a place for you at your Berni Inn.

'Why not join the Berni Set?'

Members of the Berni Set didn't enjoy just a steak dinner.

Whilst the food and the pub setting might have been traditional British,

the Berni dining experience was delivered with Italian style.

Frank and Aldo refurbished many old coaching inns, giving them

a particular look.

Eating at a Berni would be easy on the eye as well as the pocket.

It was a little bit of a fold-a-roll

and sort of curly-Q kind of world.

I remember them as having dark wood,

with a mixture of sort of banquettes and tables and lots of red and

lots of candles and bright lights in a nice, old-fashioned building.

It was Italian warmth, Italian service,

but with a great Englishness.

They tended to be slightly mock-Tudor, if I remember.

It'd almost try and be an Italian pub, you know.

So if it was the Duke of Wellington,

they'd have a whole lot of prints of Waterloo.

But they were great fun.

And obviously, that helps sell these places.

People were always interested in the history of them.

That was always written up.

When you went to the restaurant, you could see...

"Do you have the history of that?" It was written up everywhere.

I have nothing but good memories, so, the Berni family...

Grazie.

The Berni Brothers combined Italian informality and flair with

the formula of an American steakhouse chain -

all delivered in the familiar surrounds of the traditional

British pub.

Although the Berni Brothers brought some Italian panache

to the dining-out experience, if

you wanted to actually eat Italian, you'd have to look elsewhere.

Italian migrants in London had been a familiar sight to

diners for many years.

The capital had a long tradition of Italians

working as waiters.

By the 1960s, some of these waiters

opened their own restaurants,

this time selling their home cuisine.

Pasta was an acceptable foreign food.

Garlic might be hidden away and it wasn't too obvious.

Tomato sauce was not actually...not that much different from tomato

ketchup. Anyway, it's that sort of familiarity.

And it made pasta familiar.

At first, Italian food was an urban affair.

You could get a carbonara on Carnaby Street,

but you wouldn't find any linguini in Loughborough.

The only spaghetti we knew was like baked beans-y stuff.

You know, in a tin and tomato sauce.

'There are a thousand ways of cooking spaghetti,

'but only one way to eat it properly.

'It takes skill and enthusiasm.'

And where did this mystery foodstuff pasta come from?

Thankfully, the BBC were on hand to inform, entertain and enlighten.

In 1957, there's this famous broadcast on April Fool's Day

by Richard Dimbleby,

where he says...he talks about the spaghetti harvest in northern Italy.

And there are these fantastic shots of young girls taking

the spaghetti down from the trees.

'The last two weeks of March are an anxious time

'for the spaghetti farmer.

'There's always the chance of a late frost, which,

'while not entirely ruining the crop,

'generally impairs the flavour and makes it difficult for him

'to obtain top prices in world markets.

'But now these dangers are over and the spaghetti harvest goes forward.

'After picking,

'the spaghetti is laid out to dry in the warm Alpine sun.

'Many people are often puzzled by the fact that spaghetti is

'produced at such uniform length.

'But this is the result of many years of patient endeavour by plant

'breeders, who've succeeded in producing the perfect spaghetti.

'And now the harvest is marked by a traditional meal.

'For those who love this dish, there's nothing like real,

'home-grown spaghetti.'

This broadcast went out on television and people genuinely believed it,

so much so that inquiries came in saying,

"How do I grow my own spaghetti tree?"

The official answer given back was,

"Buy a tin of tomatoes and put one sprig in it."

# Veni, vidi, vici Veni, vidi, vici

# The moon above was yellow... #

Whilst we might not have impressed the neighbours with a spaghetti

tree, an Italian restaurant was soon a favoured romantic rendezvous.

# Veni, vidi, vici Veni, vidi, vici... #

What you went there was for the sense of occasion, the sense of pleasure.

If you were with a girl, they were going to fawn on her,

make her feel that she was the most beautiful and the most wonderful

person in the entire world, and that would reflect very well on you.

And I think everybody felt that they could go there.

# In our little rendezvous We kiss... #

And I remember, you know, in my 20s,

when I went to an Italian restaurant, I couldn't afford

to have the main course, the meat and fish dishes,

but you could sit there with a bottle of Frascati

and have a pasta course.

So the Italian restaurants completely democratised

glamorous eating out.

They were... It really was a revolution.

Well, sometimes I'll have a spaghetti, which I like very much.

But I think the coffee...the coffee bar, it's marvellous.

It's a good thing.

So the ordinary cafes, some people, you know,

they think...at least I think they're higher class than me

because perhaps they're artists and things like that.

But I think they're no different than me, really,

so that's why I come in here.

I mean, I'm just a common chap, like, which likes his pint

and all that.

Italian migrants were among the first to encourage the cautious

British to try something different.

They may have started it at a very small, local,

domestic level through cafes and ice cream shops,

but they brought the same sort of energy

and sense of hospitality when they started opening, you know,

these smart trattorias up and down the country.

And a visit to an Italian restaurant wasn't just about the food -

it was about the experience.

By stepping inside, diners were transported to an imagined Italy.

The decor was to give people a sort of feeling of Italy.

I mean, OK, it was completely...

You now, artificial grapes hanging from the ceiling

and vistas of the Bay of Naples on the walls. But simple tables.

Instead of carpeted floors, they were tiled floors.

So it was much more romantic.

The trattoria had this sort of grape vine up there.

And what we did, we used to put the grapes, hang the grapes,

in the morning. So when people ask

for grapes to eat, we stood on a chair,

picked up the grapes and cut it.

And one waiter would hold the bowl like this, full of water.

And then we cut the grapes

and put the grapes inside and give it to the customer.

Which again, it was part of the ambiance, part of the atmosphere.

While the music in the background was playing,

singing Amore, or whatever.

Whilst diners enjoyed the bolognese

and chianti, there was one Italian classic that wasn't on the menu.

Pizza originated in Rome and Naples,

and it was served mostly as street food.

You wouldn't find pizza on the menu of the Italian coffee shop,

spaghetti house, or Berni Inn

because Italian street food wasn't thought of as something

the British would enjoy.

It would be an entrepreneur from Peterborough

who would see the potential of pizza.

Peter Boizot would discover a slice of Italy

and bring it back to Britain.

In doing so, he gave us a new dining experience - the pizzeria.

Well, I had my first pizza in Italy in 1948.

And then I lived abroad for a while.

And when I came back to England, in 1964,

I couldn't find any place to eat a pizza, a decent pizza.

So I thought, "Why not open my own pizzeria?"

It really was a revelation.

Because there hadn't really been pizza until that time.

And the huge difference with Peter Boizot's pizza was,

they were actually...they were authentic.

In 1965, Peter Boizot opened his first Pizza Express

in London's Soho.

In the early days,

he presented the food exactly as it would be served

in Naples or Rome.

I started with big trays -

square trays, oblong trays -

and I cut the pizza into eight slices

and served it on a piece of grease-proof paper.

And it went well.

But a dear friend of mine, now dead,

Ron Simpson came along and said,

"Why don't you server round pizzas with a knife and fork?"

So I moved over to that, and it went very well.

By moving it from the street to the table,

Pizza Express had taken an unpretentious Italian food

and dressed it up for the modern British palate.

The timing was key. In 1965,

we were in thrall to all things Italian.

Italian chic may have been too expensive for many.

Dining in a pizzeria, on the other hand,

was a stylish and affordable way to sample la dolce vita.

Pizza Express wasn't expensive.

I think it was affordable-chic.

From top to bottom of society, they came.

And, um,

I didn't do anything to stop them.

If the music of Mozart conjures up for you images of Baroque cathedrals

or the hills of Salzburg,

as you listen to this performance of the Salzburg Serenade, think again.

Oh, yes, the setting is Continental all right,

but it is not quite so exotic as the music might suggest.

In fact, it is a pizza bar next door to the British Museum.

This was a wonderful democratic form of eating out.

They were an excellent product.

And not only that, but the places themselves were big,

they were buzzing, lots of people coming and going.

It becomes part of the evolution.

It's another stage in the evolution of British eating-out.

He wasn't interested in the family atmosphere.

He wasn't interested in big fat mama with her great big

sort of steaming bowl of pasta

coming out and smiling at everybody.

Whilst Peter Boizet's mother might not have been on hand

to serve customers,

to attract hip Londoners to his restaurant, he had to get

the atmosphere just right.

We did have classical music on a jukebox.

And one afternoon, Timothy Cramer came in and said,

"Would you like to have music for real?" Classical music.

I said, "I'd be delighted."

And, uh... So accordingly, he started playing.

-'Are you delighted with the results?'

-Very much so, yes.

'Is it good for business?'

It's good for business, but I think the aesthetic

pleasure of the thing is what interests me the most.

The fusion of music and mozzarella would prove to be

a recipe for success, and a string quartet with a side of

Mozart wasn't the only thing on the menu.

I went there to listen to jazz, actually.

One, two, three four...

JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

I had always been interested in music and jazz.

You had a carafe of wine,

you had a very satisfactory pizza, probably more than you could eat,

and you got music. It was a fantastic deal, you know.

It was a really good evening out.

Um, simple, you know, no frills.

And you pretty much knew what you were going to pay when you went in,

unless you had a second carafe of wine, which...sometimes we did.

There was more than just music providing the entertainment -

making pizza was an amusement in itself.

There you are, you're seeing

the pizzaiola chuck the base up in the air.

You're seeing waiters come in like that,

with a pizza in each hand, shouting out the names.

It's fun! It's a good atmosphere.

I didn't want to hide them away in the kitchen.

So I brought the kitchen out.

I can work at the rhythm of the music, you know, it's very good.

'Do you prefer it the nights the musicians are here rather than

'when they're not?'

Yes, I prefer when they are in.

With authentic pizza-makers in charge of the food,

Peter brought in an Italian designer to complete the Pizza Express look.

Whether it's the Berni Brothers introducing the Welsh to

Italian ice cream and coffee

or Peter Boizot fusing Neapolitan street food with jazz,

the modern British eating-out experience

owes more to immigration than it

does to the foreign travel industry or the recipes of celebrity chefs.

And it wasn't just Italians who enticed us to eat out.

Italian cuisine was largely popular in big cities.

But in small towns and suburbs, there was another migrant community

opening restaurants in their thousands - the Chinese.

'A few of Britain's Chinese live and work in the city Chinatowns,

'like London's Gerrard Street.

'But the great majority live in small family groups scattered

'throughout every town in Britain.'

Chinese was our way of going out, I think,

because we didn't feel threatened by Chinese food or Chinese service.

We felt warm in it.

Whereas I think we've all been nervous with a French waiter,

and even Italian waiters sometimes, looking down on us

cos we're not as sophisticated as them,

we haven't...we're very ignorant of food.

But of course, it's OK to be ignorant of Chinese food

because of course we haven't been to China.

Many of these Chinese who opened restaurants throughout Britain

had emigrated from Hong Kong during the 1950s.

They had moved to Britain in search of a better life.

Civil War and revolution in mainland China had forced

thousands of refugees into Hong Kong.

Many continued their journey, settling eventually in towns

and cities up and down the British Isles.

When a community settles overseas, its first problem, of course,

is to survive. In other words, to make a living.

Now, how do we Chinese tackle that problem?

There are two major lines of business which we Chinese go into -

the food business and laundering.

Certainly when the Chinese came over as immigrants to England,

they worked in launderettes.

And as that industry died, because people had washing machines at home,

the only thing they could convert those into was maybe take-aways

or restaurants.

Chinese restaurants soon became a favourite place to eat out,

and by the 1960s, there were over 2,000 of them.

In 1965, a survey revealed that almost a third of those questioned

had eaten at a Chinese restaurant whilst only 5% of people had

dined on French cuisine.

The Chinese restaurant drew us in to unchartered waters,

and we were intrepid explorers.

Absolutely terrifying. I mean, there it was in the far East End of London,

never been that far east,

and you just didn't know where you were.

And you just sat there and quaked

and hoped that you ordered the right thing.

And it was pretty red hot. It was really brilliant.

The first Chinese restaurant I ever went to was this Chinese

restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus.

It was upstairs.

And it had a wonderful gloominess to it.

And there was a sort of sense of going into a foreign country.

It was wonderfully exciting for a ten-year-old boy,

nine-year-old boy, whatever I was then.

And everything about it was strange.

And of course, there were these things called chopsticks,

which took you the entire meal to try and master.

Western people often wonder

why we Chinese use chopsticks

instead of the usual knife and fork.

Well, the answer dates back to Confucius,

as so many things in China date back to Confucius.

He once said that a man of virtue will never live or go

anywhere near to the kitchen or the slaughterhouse

because he doesn't want to hear the killing of animals or to see

the meat being carved and sliced up.

And that's why, in China, the slicing and carving of meat

has never been allowed onto the dining table.

Confucius almost certainly didn't have much to do with it,

but chopsticks went a long way to promoting Chinese food in Britain.

1960s Butlins holiday-makers might have encountered,

alongside the knobbly knees and bonnie baby shows,

the eating with chopsticks competition.

VOICEOVER: Use chopsticks, it's easy,

or so they told these other holiday-makers

at a Clacton holiday camp.

They've entered a Chinese eating competition,

because they've never tasted Chinese food before.

Nobody realised they'd have to do it the hard way.

This fellow would do better with a spoon and pusher.

And look at that lady's stroke play.

Yes, it does taste good,

and he wouldn't know, of course.

He hasn't started yet.

Hey, what's this?

He's really mixing it now.

Madam, please, that's just not cricket.

Oh, forget the chopsticks then.

He's found the chop.

The showbiz version of chopsticks and chop suey

was a world apart from the real story.

Many migrants from Hong Kong followed in the footsteps of

the Italians in Wales,

opening restaurants in working class suburbs and towns.

Lily Kwock set up her restaurant in 1950 just outside Manchester.

It was one of the first of its kind.

There's a famous quote that says,

"The journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step",

and it really started with her in Hong Kong

working for an English family.

And after post-war Britain,

the English family wanted to come back.

The lady that she looked after and cared for passed away,

left a small inheritance for her,

and then, from there, she used that money

to start her own business.

She set it in Middleton, in the 1950s.

And they initially thought she was Japanese,

so they boycotted her first restaurant, the Lung Fung,

cos they thought she was going to poison their food.

Er, my grandmother, being entrepreneurial

and determined to succeed,

hired a local lady called Mavis,

and it was Mavis that helped to bridge the gap

and bring locals to come and try the food.

They were won over by the spices, by the tastes...

You know, by the whole experience of dining out.

Lily's initial business, The Lung Fung Cafe

was modest by today's standards.

My grandmother's restaurant in the 1950s

was a very basic restaurant

with, you know, white walls, tables and chairs.

I think expectations were quite low.

So, it didn't matter that she had a very basic restaurant.

Middleton is a working-class area, you don't want to make it too posh

and put your diners off.

You've got to make it comfortable, so that they feel welcome there

and that's exactly what Lung Fung was.

She was obviously, you know, very entrepreneurial,

and I think she went up to about 26 shops,

which was amazing for a woman in the '50s to do that.

She had so many regular customers

who would order the same thing again and again

that I don't think she even needed a menu at one point.

Some of those original customers still remember their introduction

to Lily's food.

The first time I went to Lung Fungs

was with my friend on a Friday night

and he said, "I'll take you for a good curry",

and we went to this, Lung Fungs is like a Chinese restaurant.

So, we went in there

and it was, had flags on the floor, and all that,

and she used to have a dish, a jug,

and organise some forks in.

So, it was really like, old fashion.

After she'd been here a couple of years, they had a toilet put in,

but it was right in the centre of the room,

and if you were on the toilet, everyone could hear you.

Opening a Chinese restaurant during rationing posed its own problems.

When she first opened in the 1950s,

obviously, there is a limitation on what kind of foods is available,

and she was very creative, so she would adapt.

If there wasn't sugar, she'd put apples into the curry

to sweeten things up.

Um...

I know the curry used to change colour from green to yellow

depending on what was available.

But, you know, she managed to find the spices from somewhere,

and kept the customers really hooked on what she made.

CHINESE MUSIC PLAYS

Lily's culinary legacy is still evident today.

60 years on, her family continue to cook her curry.

My grandmother and my parents have had

a massive influence on my life.

You know, in a former life,

I used to be a lawyer.

And so, I've given that up to open up a restaurant with Lisa,

who used to work in finance.

So, we have actually changed our paths quite significantly.

To actually be able to make her dishes today

keeps her memory alive.

Hong Kong wasn't the only territory that would have

a profound influence on the British eating out experience.

By 1970, Britain was fast becoming a diverse, multicultural society.

MUSIC: Paper Sun by Traffic

There were already well-established Asian communities

throughout Britain,

but relatively few Indian restaurants existed.

It was migration from a specific region of the Indian subcontinent

that would introduce many of us to 'Indian' food.

There's a lot of Bangladeshi people in Great Britain,

but 90% of the people there came from Sylhet province.

So, basically, actually, there are 90% Bangladeshi people,

they're called Bangladeshi,

but they are from a particular part of Bangladesh,

and they all speak with the same Sylheti dialect.

The 9,000 Indian restaurants in this country

are actually owned and staffed by Bangladeshis.

So much is the connection between the two countries

that St Albans actually is twinned with Sylhet.

In 1971, Sylhet became a focal point in a civil war

between East and West Pakistan.

The conflict arose when politicians in East Pakistan

declared independence from West.

They named their new state Bangladesh.

There was a refugee crisis.

Millions fled the conflict.

Thousands of families from Sylhet came to Britain

in the hope of starting afresh.

With limited employment opportunities,

these migrants found Britain a difficult place

to begin their new lives.

I think, for a lot of the immigrants, if not every immigrant,

I think it was a really big shock to come to England.

I mean, I don't know what they had quite expected,

but you leave this vibrant country

where there is this big sense of community

where you sort of know a lot of people,

you have a lot of family around you,

there is colour and there is music and there is Indian food

and there is everything on the street and at home.

And it's quite chaotic but it is anything but dull.

And then you sort of come to England and...

And it's grey and it's dark early and it's raining.

And you come back and your neighbourhood's really quiet

and you come back to your flat.

That's quite a culture shock.

-PRESENTER:

-The Pakistanis are moving in and doing well.

Kusna has to rub shoulders with the Nasral restaurant.

The Ironmonger Libovitch has a new neighbour -

the halal butcher.

It's the East End story.

One wave of immigrants being followed by another.

Servicing the fallout from one particular British pastime

would present a late-night opportunity.

When the Indian food started, I can still even...

my father and my uncle...used to be trouble all the time.

Indian food actually was the last option at the late-night.

Their Indian restaurant used to open

until two, three, four o'clock in the morning.

And on Friday, Saturdays, they had a lot of trouble.

They were the only people who would stay open that late

to try and get some business,

and they found quite soon that actually

if we stayed up until after the pubs close,

we have a passing trade.

And no-one else really wanted to be open that late,

they want to be in bed with their families.

But, as an immigrant, you have no choice,

you slightly have to take what you get,

you've got to carve out your own niche.

The 1960s and '70s are now seen as

a time of increasing liberalisation,

but for many migrants these decades were tainted

by racism, violence and routine discrimination.

I'm sure if we are going to make ourselves

more acceptable to this society here

and have good relations with them,

we have to readjust ourselves

and try to know their point of view as well.

But dining out was one way the British

could get to know their new neighbours.

I think the great thing about what Indian restaurants have achieved

and, in fact, all restaurants achieved

is they've managed to break down the barriers of race, class and sex,

but especially race.

It's very difficult to feel racist or xenophobic

when someone's just entertained you,

in extensibility, their home, their restaurant.

If someone feeds you, it's difficult to distrust them after that moment.

Obviously, unless you get food poisoning.

But, but, you, I think that's been,

that's why this country has such a good track record of racism,

because of the plurifilation of Indian, Chinese, Italian restaurants

throughout the UK.

Definitely, if you look around,

I think the British culture is the one who's sort of accepted...

and adopted all these cuisines.

And now, I mean, you get them on every street corner.

I would almost say it's almost like modern British now

because you can eat modern British food

and have some spices from here and,

I don't know, you just do.

And I don't know if it's because

they have the whole Commonwealth and they've travelled more

and they have more of a history

or if English food just really needed it.

Just as the Bernis had gone into serving steak rather than pasta,

and Chow Mein was often eaten with chips,

Indian cuisine has adapted to cater for British diners.

A lot of the early Indian food in this country

was made for a British palate.

Hey, too hot for you, is it?

No, no, it's fine, is this. You know, it's all right.

We've had much hotter than this.

Remember where we used to go to

-after night school?

-Oo, yeah.

-I like it hot.

-Hey, what is that?

-It's lime pickle.

-Chilli, I think.

Here, you're looking really flushed.

Carling shatters more thirst than any other lager

and leaves you with a flavour to savour.

It's safer to not have really strong spices

when people are not really used to spices.

ALARM RINGS

HE PANTS

HE SIGHS

It's not what you would call proper Indian home food,

and I think that's why our curry houses are slightly confused

because the people who cooked it all from one region

and its Bangladesh now,

but at one point it was Bengal, which was part of India.

They didn't have the right ingredients

to cook their own home food.

And, they were used to this restaurant style of cooking.

So, I think all these forces came together

and we ended up with the British curry house.

Indian food in the UK is as much influenced by British taste

as it is by Indian spice.

To some British Asians,

the local version of curry is unrecognisable.

-VOICEOVER:

-This is the chef, the Vesta chef

who diced the beef, sliced the onion,

mixed the fruit, ground the spice,

stirred the curry, prepared the rice

that went into Vesta beef curry,

and it took him three hours.

This is the wife who went to the pantry, who opened the packet,

then cooked and served that wonderful Vesta beef curry,

and she did it all in 20 minutes.

Some of the dishes do show a resemblance to what we eat at home.

They might not be called that, the same sort of thing,

but they do have resemblance there.

And other ones are completely different.

They're not things we'd even consider making at home.

I don't think my mum even knows how to make chicken tikka masala,

so, whereas, obviously, she would know

how to make something like a bhuna,

which is that sort of flavouring and that sort of spice.

MUSIC: Song Of Innocence by David Axelrod

Well, there isn't really an Indian food, as such,

and we've now learned that, cos now we have all the regionalities

coming out in restaurants, in supermarkets, in magazines now.

Everything's like a Keralan this or a Goan that,

which is great, because that provenance is enough.

Cos there isn't a universal Indian flavour,

but there seems to be when you enter a curry house.

That's where all bets are off and everything changes.

SITAR MUSIC PLAYS

Indian restaurants have succeeded so well in Britain

that nearly all of us have own favourite curry house.

We're now fluent in Indian food.

Some of them didn't bother to look at the menu.

They know exactly what dish they're going to have,

but 40% will ask to look at the menu.

For 10 minutes, they'll browse for 10 minutes,

then, 10 minutes later, they'll order the same dish.

What the Indians did so brilliantly

was they standardised their menu right from the beginnings.

When they, even in 1910, they standardised,

they invented these dishes called dopiaza, and all this sort of thing,

and they even invented chicken tikka masala for us,

because a man ordered chicken tikka,

which, as you know, is a dish without sauce,

and said, "Where's the gravy?"

You hear a lot of stories about how it was invented in England

and it was an English dish.

And I know that you will never find a chicken tikka masala in India,

but it's so similar to butter chicken,

is kind of grilled tandoori chicken in a creamy tomato sauce.

Now, for me, it's so clear that there's an origin,

so I'm not convinced that that's a true urban myth,

that it was invented by some punters.

After over 40 years,

the typical British curry house is still a family-run business -

and a thriving one.

And if you go to London and all over the UK, actually,

our family and our distant cousins,

they are still involved with the restaurant business.

They own a lot of restaurants.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was

a good few hundred coming up to 1,000 in regards to numbers

if you take that into account.

By enticing us to dine out and to try something different,

generations of immigrants have transformed

the British eating experience.

MUSIC: Marquee Moon by Television

Migration has given us more accessible, more affordable

and more accommodating restaurants.

This has helped democratise dining out for everyone.

I think people learnt to eat out.

In 1959, we only spent 10p in every pound that we spend on food

on eating away from the home.

In 2005, it's now 38p,

so very gradually,

we learned to be comfortable sitting in a restaurant with a menu.

So, the experience is no longer intimidating as it once was.

These restaurants encouraged us to try new things

and be a little more adventurous.

What it does is that people get used to spending money on food

that they're not eating at home.

They get used to eating away from home.

After a bit they get bored, so they go try something else.

And that leads them up a food chain,

and it leads them on

to expect something better and better and better.

By fusing their flavours with traditional British tastes,

they have created dishes that have become standard local fare.

If you look at our food culture,

since time immemorial,

we've begged, borrowed, stolen, used, adapted foods

from all over the world.

Spices from here, you know,

fruits from there, meats from somewhere else.

Ideas, techniques and so on.

The success of these restaurants is remarkable.

Italians, Chinese and Asian migrants have introduced the British

to the joys of eating out and eating differently.

The desire to build a better life in a new country

ended up changing the way we all dine out.