Restaurants ready to represent Wolverhampton in bid for curry capital title

Having been ranked third for the past three years, the city is now hoping to clinch the honour, which would also mark a significant tourism boost for the area.

To kickstart the campaign, which is being backed by the Express & Star, a charity film screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will be held at the Light House Media Centre on April 30.

WV One, the city centre management company, is organising the bid and is calling for the help of curry lovers to pick their best curry houses in the city.

The top four will be put forward for judging for the award. For the past two years, Bradford hasbeen crowned with the title, followed by Glasgow in second place. Last year Birmingham finished sixth.

About 20 cities are expected to compete this year. Marianne Carter, marketing officer at WV One, said: "Having entered this competition for the past three years we have seen how important it is to our local restaurants.

"Every year team Wolverhampton wants to do its best to beat Bradford and Glasgow.

"With the added support this year of the city council and the Express & Star we are very hopeful of doing better than ever." The charity night will feature authentic Indian music entertainment to set the mood before the screening.

Food and drink will also be served by city-based restaurant The Bilash, in Cheapside.

Cash raised will go toward the Curry Tree Foundation, which supports local charitable causes.

Following the event, attention will turn to public voting to decide the city's team of four curry houses. Once chosen, the restaurants will be scored in secret by a select group of judges from the Federation of Specialist Restaurants.

Judges will visit the restaurants, scoring each one on the food and service, cleanliness and customer comments before the winning city will be announced on October 13.

Residents will still be asked to continue to vote for the city as a whole because if the scoring is close between two bidding cities, judges will go back to counting the total number of votes for each place to pick a winner.

Last year, the restaurants representing Wolverhampton were The Bilash, the Red Fort in Fold Street, Cafe Rickshaw in Chapel Ash and the Masala Club in Tettenhall.

Tickets for the charity film night cost £10 each and are available by emailing info@wvone.co.uk.

For more information on the city's bid visit www.currycapitalwolves.co.uk

How to vote for your favourite curry house:

To vote for your favourite Indian restaurant in?Wolverhampton, email the name to vote@fedrest.com before the August 2 deadline.

The four restaurants with the most votes which will form the team representing Wolverhampton will then be announced on August 9.

People can then continue to vote for their town or city until September 13. To vote for Wolverhampton, send an email with Wolverhampton written in the subject line to votecity@fedrest.com

Alternatively, to vote via Twitter, tweet #restaurantname (e.g #thecurryhouse) and #Wolverhampton to @thecurrycapital