Kamal Restaurant, located on Stanhope street in Newcastle has won a national award as being highly commended in the North East Asian restaurant of the year at the Asian curry awards 2024. I caught up with the owner, Umayr Saleem about what this meant for his business and career in the culinary world.
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00:00So, the restaurant in itself offers so much for customers, it's got everything you need,
00:07like if you like a spicy dish, authentic dishes, mild dishes, there's dishes that you've never
00:13seen before, the bryanis are beautiful, the starters are all barbecued on charcoal, learning
00:20to cook came from my father, he helped me understand food and how it goes together and
00:26infusing flavours and keeping it traditional but authentic at the same time.
00:33He bought the restaurant initially to run, he always wanted to run a restaurant and at
00:38the time, so it was like, okay, you run the restaurant, you've got the experience and
00:43I'll help along the way, so in and out always guiding me and helping and it was me front
00:49of house sort of helping lift the business and grow the business and marketing and reducing
00:55new dishes and making sure everything ran smooth on a day-to-day business.
01:01With his knowledge behind the scenes of spices and food, we grew the business and achieved
01:07an award.
01:08So, it came as a complete shock out of the blue sort of thing, basically you have to
01:14be nominated by people in the area and then once you're nominated, they send out people
01:21to test the food and if they think the food's good enough, then you get nominated and then
01:27from there, you ask friends and family and customers to vote for your restaurant to win
01:36the award.
01:37It is like a lot of the community use the restaurant, it's on the doorstep, it's outside
01:42of town which is handy because the parking's easy, you don't have to pay for parking.
01:49We do get a lot of people from far afield as well and I thank all the staff and the
01:54amazing customers that come and visit, it's an honour to serve you every time you come.