The British Indian Restaurant (BIR) curry is probably the most well known of global restaurant curries, though its more a style of cookery than anything else. Bengali dishes tend to dominate this style. In fact, it could be said that most typical BIR curries include: a tomato-based base curry sauce; ginger-garlic paste; tomato purée; a basic curry mix powder along with cooked meat or vegetables along with curry spices or spice powders unique for the specific curry being made. There are currently 140 Restaurant-style curry recipes in total presented on this site.

As well as the classic BIR curries with the ingredients mentioned above I am also including restaurant balti dishes here as balti-style restaurant dishes (bāltī gosht) have become a mainstay of many British Indian (as well as Bangladeshi and Pakistani) restaurants in the UK. As restaurant dining has blossomed in India of late, I'm also including restaurant recipes from India here. There are also Indian restaurant curries from other countries too, so that you can compare how Indian-style dishes have been adapted to local tastes in various countries.

The term curry seems to have entered English via Portuguese from the Tamil கறி kaṟi meaning 'sauce' or 'relish for rice' possibly in conflation/syncretisation with Bengali কড়াই, romanized: koṛāi the dish use to cook a curry in the Bay of Bengal, where the British East India Company was largely based. However, it was not until the early 1600s that English commercial activity (and exploitation) of India began, when East India Company ships docked at Surat in Gujarat in 1608. The company established its first Indian factory in 1615 at Surat, and its second in 1616 at Masulipatnam on the Andhra Coast of the Bay of Bengal. This is how the Bay of Bengal became the early gateway into India. It was from ports in the Bay of Bengal that enterprising Englishmen entered India at the behest of the East India Company made. Many fell in love with India and on returning home they required Indian spices to take with them. Enterprising Bengali merchants mixed spice blends to the English taste (and to make maximal profits) that tended to be heavy on turmeric and absent of chilli (chilli had not really penetrated into Indian cookery at this time). These exotic spice blends made their way to England and became part of the posher dining tables. As early as 1733, curry was served in the Norris Street Coffee House in Haymarket. By 1784, curry and rice had become specialties in some popular restaurants in the area around London’s Piccadilly. Just two decades later and England had its first curry house, the Hindoostanee Coffee House, which opened in 1810 at 34 George Street near Portman Square, Mayfair, London. The proprietor was Sake Dean Mahomed.

In recent years, curry has transcended cultural boundaries and become a global phenomenon. Fusion cuisines have emerged, blending the traditional curry flavours with local ingredients and culinary techniques. You can now find curry-infused dishes in unexpected places, from curry tacos in California to curry pizzas in Japan. This, of course, has also affected the curries that you get in restaurants in various curries, whether that's the ubiquitous (and definitely not authentic) pub curry. Restaurant curries, like all restaurant dishes also need to be served quickly, which means adapting curries to restaurant styles of cookery.