Packed with as much history as flavour, the balti evolved out of Birmingham’s first-generation Pakistani community in the 1970s and became a post-pub hit with generations of university students and locals. But with just a handful of balti restaurants remaining, what’s the future of this celebrated curry?
My first balti was at Adil’s on Stoney Lane, some 20 years ago. Since my parents possessed the sort of glacial culinary palette that would make Mary Whitehouse blush, this was quite comfortably the most exciting restaurant I’d ever stepped foot in at the age of 17.
From the gregarious atmosphere steaming up the windows that chilly February evening to the fiery curry hissing and gurgling within a black steel bowl as if it were sentient, my balti introduction was a profound experience.
That night, I’d traveled to Adil’s with some friends from the fairly bucolic streets of Hall Green on Birmingham’s southern hem and into what’s affectionately known as the Balti Triangle.
Flanking the neighborhoods of Sparkbrook, Sparkhill and Balsall Heath, the area is a culturally diverse and densely populated inner city mix of pre-war terraced houses, seething gridlock and colorful grocery shops spilling out onto the pavement amid countless eating establishments. Many of which, back then at least, were balti houses.
For the uninitiated, the balti is a one-pot curry developed by Birmingham’s fledgling Pakistani community in the mid-1970s. Using a steel flat-bottomed ‘wok,’ the ingredients are cooked quickly, stir-fry style, over a searing heat using vegetable oil rather than ghee—the balti is defined more by method than ingredients.
Efficiency is the key—it only takes around 10 minutes to cook—and the scorched caramelized peripherals of the balti bowl give it a wonderful light sweetness.
Once Birmingham’s original pioneering balti house when it opened in 1977, Adil’s doors are now closed for good.
The dish also merged the concept of cooking and serving in the same bowl—a method often used in the mountainous areas of Pakistan—with the fast cooking demanded by most Western customers, who, to begin with at least, were the biggest customer base.
My initial venture into the famous neighborhood was in the early 2000s, during the dying embers of the balti’s popularity zenith. In its ‘90s heyday, the Balti Triangle was home to more than 30 authentic balti houses and punters traveled from far and wide to sample the iconic Birmingham dish. Now just four are left.
I went back to Adil’s years later in January 2020, not long before the COVID-19 pandemic enveloped the world. My girlfriend and I were the only customers.
That soporific Sunday evening was a far cry from my balti epiphany almost 20 years earlier. The click-clack of the waiter’s shoes echoed past empty tables as I watched car headlamps metronomically glide back and forth through the restaurant’s crystal clear windows.
It was Birmingham’s original pioneering balti house when it opened back in 1977; in 2022, Adil’s closed its doors for good.
Still fighting the good fight, Royal Watan has been going since 1984 and still serves authentic baltis (alongside cartoonishly oversized naans). Shahi Nan Kabab House also offers a mix of baltis including the curiously titled ‘Tropical Balti,’ though they also specialize in some delightful Pakistani street food cooked over a hot iron grill behind the entrance counter. The ‘popular’ restaurant is an enduring staple of local taxi drivers after a long shift.
There is one restaurant, however, which has carried the torch for the balti during this fallow period. Located in the heart of the narrow and sometimes chaotic Ladypool Road, Shababs opened in 1987 and, in a strange juxtaposition to its contemporaries, only seems to be getting more popular with the passage of time. However, the neighborhood that Shababs, formerly an ice cream shop, inhabited in its early days was a different world.
“We always welcomed people bringing their own drinks in,” Shababs owner Zafar Hussain tells me over an unctuous chicken balti he cooked himself. “And there was a pub across the road called The George which was handy, but it’s closed down now. People would walk over with a pint of mild in their hand and at the end of the night, one of the bar staff would come over and collect the empties.”
Baltis were evening staples of white locals, but as the demographics of Sparkbrook changed in the following years, the balti houses were among the first to feel the impact.
When much of Birmingham’s heritage is either unloved, ignored or lost to sepia-toned photographs, the balti is visceral heritage you can taste and smell and wonderfully reflects modern Birmingham’s multicultural character.
“The pub trade worked hand in hand with the balti houses,” Hussain says. “As the pubs began to close down, so did the restaurants. The Irish community moved out and the Asian community moved in. That had an effect.”
“The local community hardly ever ate out because they didn’t have any disposable income. If you’re going to eat out for a fiver, they’d say ‘we can cook at home for a week with a fiver.’”
Now, some 30 years later, balti houses may be seldom seen, but there’s no shortage of places to eat—and lamenting the lack of balti houses feels more emotional than economical. Lively burger joints, neon-flecked dessert parlors and languid tea shops are among the myriad dining options pockmarking the units of the Ladypool and Stratford roads, forming a vibrant community alongside windows of glittering saris and elegant suits tempting the more sartorial locals.
And on a more macro level, Birmingham itself has rapidly become a dining haven with a plethora of superb independents and more Michelin stars than any city outside of London. Which is great—though the city still does frustratingly little to promote the balti. When much of Birmingham’s heritage is either unloved, ignored or lost to sepia-toned photographs, the balti is visceral heritage you can taste and smell and wonderfully reflects modern Birmingham’s multicultural character.
“You can’t stand in the way of progress. If the local community wants to try lots of different food, then I don’t blame them. But I want to see the proper balti preserved,” says Andy Munro, secretary of the Association for the Protection of the Authentic Balti.
Incorrigible in his passion, Birmingham local Munro has eaten thousands of baltis, written hundreds of newspaper restaurant reviews in the 80s and 90s as a side gig to his regular job, and eventually had a book published on the subject called Going for a Balti. Still an animated figure in his 70s, it’s through the Birmingham Balti Bowl Co that he relentlessly promotes perhaps the city’s only truly local dish.
“The burning question is, food normally goes in cycles, but will it this time?” says Munro. “Up to now, the kids of parents have always wanted something different from their parents. The people who are now going for a burger in their 20s… will their kids still want a burger or a pizza?”
I tell Shabab’s Zafar Hussain about that forlorn evening I spent at Adil’s and lamented its recent closing, a closing I naively assumed had been a COVID-19 casualty. I’m caught a little off guard when he tells me it was simply a family matter, that the next generation wasn’t interested in running the business, despite its heritage.
Rising rent prices and changing culinary trends have all contributed to the balti’s current status, but these restaurants have always been family businesses. The question now is whether the children want to keep it that way: “It all depends on families at the end of the day,” says Munro. “Whether families decide if they want to keep it going, and especially the young people. Family support is the future of the balti.”
This seems to me like a precarious position, but if enough people show support, then perhaps Birmingham’s iconic dish will live on for generations to come.
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James March is a freelance travel writer and photographer based in Birmingham, UK. His bylines appear in a variety of publications, including the BBC, National Geographic Traveller, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, Lonely Planet and Condé Nast Traveller.
