Curry: why the British are moving on from Chicken Tikka Masala Even the most unusual dishes are finally getting airtime as Indian food fans become bolder. Shamil Thakrar, founder of Dishoom, the "Bombay café in London" with branches in Shoreditch and Covent Garden, says that his Skate Cheeks Koliwada (yes, skate have cheeks) and Kala Khatta Gola Ice (blueberries, chilli, lime and salt - "truly an acquired taste") are as popular as any other dish. So what is behind our long overdue embrace of Indian cooking's wonderful diversity? One reason is a greater understanding of how to make Indian food ourselves. "Travel and food programmes have enhanced customer knowledge," Alom comments. Immensely popular TV chefs such as Madhur Jaffrey, Anjum Anand and Cyrus Todiwala have helped demystify Indian cooking and straighten out misconceptions (one of Jaffrey's most persistent assertions is that Indian food is not all "curry") through their books and TV shows. We also want to eat more healthily, even when we order or make a traditional comfort food like curry. When served with pilau rice and plain naan bread, Chicken Tikka Masala contains a huge 1,338 calories, according to a report by Which? magazine - this may explain why we're not as keen on it as we once were. Dipna Anand, of third generation Indian restaurant Brilliant, in Middlesex, has, in shrewd acknowledgement of the off-putting guilt induced by a hefty curry, begun marking "Healthy Options" in little hearts on her menu. She also includes their calorific value, and finds this has led to a vast increase in orders for lower-calorie dishes such as tandoori: "Order quantities for the butcher have more than tripled for tandoori items since our chef started three years ago," she says. So we are ordering more widely because we are wiser and want to be healthier, but exciting progress in the taste of the food itself has to be the biggest factor in our new spice audacity. Whether "British Indian" (originating here, such as Korma, Tikka Masala and Lamb Rogan) or "authentic," Indian food is developing in ever more imaginative ways. Enam Ali, owner of Le Raj restaurant in Epsom, Surrey and founder of the British Curry Awards, says that his chefs" adaptations of recipes have made them "better than the originals in India." Restaurants are fusing Indian with Mediterranean, French, Scottish and Japanese food. Dishoom makes fabulous cocktails using chai syrup and spices such as coriander and cardamom. The Cardiff-based Indian chef Stephen Gomes, regarded as "the Heston of Indian food," has won many awards at his Moksh restaurant with outlandish recipes such as Chocolate and Orange Chicken Tikka, or Hyderabadi Minced Lamb and Potato with Chilli Beetroot Foam. Curry made and adapted in Britain is now so good that it's even becoming a major export. Ali relates an experience in Prague recently where he saw a Czech chef cooking curry with a Patak sauce, a brand founded in Britain. "Curry is served in five star hotels around the world," he says, "and they're not using recipes from India, they're from [Britain]." There were a record 40,000 nominations for the top prizes in Ali's latest British Curry Awards in November, suggesting that more and more of us want to champion the achievements of our local Indian chefs around the country. To top it off, Indian restaurants themselves seem to be smartening up. The new Est. India is a good example: its simple elephant motif wallpaper and latticed doors are appealing without being pretentious. Dishoom takes a much more showy approach to decor with its 1930s Bollywood posters and art deco checkerboard flooring, and its fantastic open kitchen, where diners can watch chefs twirling roti breads above their heads and flinging them on spherical cooking domes, a great sight. It has been years since British Indian restaurants were merely somewhere for "cheap spicy food to go with beer," as Madhur Jaffrey described them on arrival in Britain in the mid-Fifties. But now they are branching out, experimenting and winning over the world in more exciting ways than ever, and we're embracing it.