'Is this tiny Prestwich takeaway really the best in the UK? I drove for forty minutes to find out'

Forty minutes in the car on the M60 on a dark, drizzly Tuesday evening to pick up a takeaway seems like a bit of an undertaking. Actually, let’s upgrade that to ‘daft’. But what if it’s supposed to be the best takeaway in the country?

Last week, the descriptively named Bombay Cuisine in Prestwich was given that very mantle at the Asian Restaurant and Takeaway Awards, dubbed ‘the Oscars of the curry industry’. Over 2,300 businesses were nominated this year, with over 100,000 votes being cast for the winner by their own customers.

To come out as the best takeaway in the whole of the UK as such a modest place - it’s a tiny spot on the edge of Heaton Park, just a kitchen and a waiting area at the front - feels like a pretty big deal. So here I am, on the motorway, really hoping it’s better than my regular Friday night go-to.

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I’m spoiled in that regard. I’ve patronised the Royce Balti Palace in Chorlton for more than a decade now, and it’s never let me down. Not on one single occasion. Bombay Cuisine has an almost insurmountable mountain to climb here.

I’ve already phoned in the order, but when I pull up, things are hectic. The kitchen is hot, loud and small and there are five cooks in the back, each head down and clattering pans together, moving between each other easily despite the squeeze.

When the guy at the front asks for my order, he has a fistful to go through and looks harassed.