FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER: The making of Rusholme’s famous Curry Mile

If you hop onto the 42 bus towards Rusholme, you’ll find yourself transported to a magical land of endless curry houses, proper kebab spots and shisha bars – otherwise known as Manchester’s famous Curry Mile. 

Throughout the last couple of decades, the Curry Mile has gained both nation-wide and global fame for its abundance of South Asian restaurant offerings. Yet while this stretch of road has both given Manchester a handsome reputation in the world of South Asian cuisine, very little is actually known about its history. 

While the part of Wilmslow Road which stretches through Rusholme was given the affectionate nickname in the 1980s, the area’s origins actually date back three decades prior, to the 1950s – Manchester’s textile industry was thriving, and the city was seeing an influx of South Asian migrants relocating to fill British labour shortages. 

Bruce Anderson

One worker told the BBC that people were enticed to come to Britain when the recruiters ‘went round the villages banging drums, telling everyone how great it was to come here.’ The approach worked a treat and, as a result, thousands of keen workers made the move to Manchester, with the majority settling in Rusholme. 

It is most commonly believed that The New Taj Mahal Restaurant was the first curry house to open in not just Rusholme, but the whole of Manchester, back in the late 1950s. However, Shere Khan – the first fully licensed Indian restaurant to grace the area –  is thought to have taken over the site in 1987, where it remains today. From that spot, it paved the way for other Indian restaurants by combining modern design with the traditional tastes of India.

Abdul Akhtar, co-owner of Sanam, one of the oldest surviving curry houses alongside Shere Khan, says that the growth of South Asian cuisine was a slow one because, even in the late 60s, the area was still made up of more ‘traditional English shops’ like banks, hairdressers, jewellers and pubs.

Dai O’Nysius / Wikimedia Commons

He said: “When my father set up the restaurant in 1968, there were very few Asians and only one other Indian restaurant, Gulam Sweet Centre – but that’s gone now. In a short space of time, the area totally and utterly changed. There were an increasing number of Indian restaurants, as the success of one business attracted others.”

He added that by the late 70s, the predominantly Pakistani community had settled down and was expanding – which, in turn, fuelled the expansion of The Curry Mile.

Alternatively, another local resident recalled how the population of the area changed completely within a couple of decades of the initial migrants’ arrival, noting that in the 70s, out of seventy or eighty houses on a Rusholme street there were about four that were home to Asian families, but by the mid 80s, ‘there were only two or three non-Asians living there.’

David McKelvey / Flickr

He explained: “So in the space of about fifteen years, it became obvious everywhere you went, Asians were moving in either from abroad or from other areas like Bradford or Derby.”

By the mid 1980s, the nickname of the ‘Curry Mile’ had stuck to Wilmslow Road’s Rusholme stretch and, in January 2008, Manchester City Council officially put up signs bearing the title.  And, fast forwarding to today, even though the Curry Mile has made room for a number of Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine spots as well as the relatively modern trend of Sisha, South Asian food remains its focus and its pinnacle. 

Who else really fancies a curry now?