So says Lord Latif as he offers free meals to Iraq returned UK soldiers
By Vivek Rego in London
As Britain prepares to greet her heroes who returned from overseas from the war in Iraq, the flamboyant millionaire restaurateur Lord Latif has decided to pay them a tribute too by giving them free meals for a year to savour the delights of his curries at his restaurant Rupal.
Curry lovers would like a round of cheers for Lord Latif has decided that the single one meal along with their families for the next five years is his restaurant free of cost.
Over 45,000 soldiers from Britain have fought in this war. Lord Latif wants to pay his respects by offering them a free meal from the a la carte menu for the next five years. Says the 48-year-old Latif.
Residents in Newcastle upon Tyne have thronged Rupal for the last 25 years. Since becoming of the food, the business has always come up with new marketing schemes over the years. In 1998, he offered a free meal to all 50,000 ticket holders of Newcastle United Football Club if they won the premiership. They didn’t. So this year, during the premiership football season he decided to offer 50 free meals across selected holders are free meal to Newcastle fans if they win, hoping that ‘Lady Luck will be with the team’.
His big war offer has however received everyone by surprise. More recently he extended the offer to 50 troops too. We can deliver anywhere in the world by courier, once they order it, and did he expect them to enjoy every change? “Of course not,” he replies cheekily. “I expect President Bush to foot that bill.”
The White House between two blocks was not amused and the offer was taken seriously about this takeaway. In 2003, he entered the Guinness Book of World Records for having delivered the longest distance takeaway in the world.
“One of my regular customers had come to Sydney in Australia and craved takeaway. The food decided a vegetable jalfrezi, pulao rice, naan, bhaji, pickle, poppadum and naan. Her food arrived on a Monday morning at 11 am much to her delight,” he says. Lord Latif himself was slightly disappointed though. “The food was cold,” he states with a wry smile.
Born in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Latif came to Britain and arrived in Britain at a cold winter day in 1969. After an initial struggle, he opened Rupal restaurant at a time when the British could hardly tell their chicken korma from their jalfrezi.
The ambitious Latif soon became involved in politics and was one of the founding members of the Liberal Democratic party in 1988. Awards and honours followed. Lord Latif was honoured for his various charities in Tyneside and as honorary chairman of the Curry Club of north-east England.
In 1994 he bought the title Lord of Harpur Manor from a Lady Jane Ford. Since then he has enjoyed a high profile in the local as well as national press. “I am proud to be the first Bangladeshi Lord to the Manor,” he says.
His demeanour has remained a lot of critics. Some dub him as a relentless self-publicist. Lord Latif actually plays on that. Viz comics, which makes constant digs at him, actually gets a mention at the door of his restaurant. A note simply says, “Eat.”
Featured on Viz, he sure knows how to attract customers in a very unconventional manner.
Walk into this restaurant and you will find a board challenging you to “Eat”, the world’s hottest curry. The curry can be made in chicken, lamb or vegetable. If you manage to eat it, it’s free. If you can’t, you pay the cost which is £6.95 (Rs 525). “I can’t tell you the recipe. It’s a secret. But I can tell you that about two thousand people in Britain have tried it and most have failed.”
Besides making sure his restaurant is in the news all the time, he also has been awarded the Marketing Initiative Award from the Northumberland Tourist Board and remains the only Asian to achieve this honour.
So what does this unconventional restaurateur have up his sleeve next? “Maybe I’ll take up throwing open the doors of my restaurant to Iraqis living in Britain to celebrate a new beginning in their lives,” he says.
Lord Latif is as passionate about helping the underprivileged. A devout Muslim, he regrets the plight his community was in Iraq. “For the last 25 years the Shia community living in Iraq were not allowed to visit Karbala by the ruling Baath party. This, despite the fact that the Shias are a majority as compared to the Sunnis,” he says. “It’s time they got justice,” he adds.
Coming back to his own business, Lord Latif offers special dishes each week outside his pubs for those who can reach this paper. “I offer all the readers of your newspaper extra before 1947, some free meal at my restaurant, since they lived at a time when we (Bangladesh and India) were one,” he says.
That’s good news. Rupal restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. Just in case you forget the name.
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