The smell of spices filled the air at Argie Bhaji: Curry Battle 4.0 at Jesmond’s Wylam Brewery earlier this month – but the event proved a boon for local Indian eateries.

Spread over two days, the festival at Exhibition Park saw multiple restaurants in the region competing for the title based on popular consumption and judging

The event, that started as “a fun, celebration of amazing authentic and contemporary Indian street food” has been gaining momentum, seeing 20% year-on-year increase in footfall, said Danny Hughes of Unit 44, one of the event organisers.

Hughes added that local events like these play an important role in helping restaurants communicate directly with a new audience. With 11 street food vendors in attendance, this was their biggest event this year.

“The format had already been established – eateries would offer ‘small dishes’ that packed heaps of flavour – giving people a chance to sample a restaurant for as little as £3,” said Hughes.

“We had to increase the vendors to cope with the demand to ensure that people would not have to wait too long for food. At the same time, we had to strike a balance so that the vendors could enjoy a big enough share of the revenue.”

In light of the prediction that nearly 17,000 Indian restaurants will disappear in a decade by Yawar Khan, chairman of the Asian Catering Federation (ACF) in 2017, events like Argie Bhaji are a great marketing exercise for Indian restaurants to widen their reach. 

Sudharsan Murugavel of Jesmond’s Dosa Kitchen, which was attending its first Argie Bhaji event, said: “While social media is great for spreading the word, it is only at such events that people can actually taste the food. Only then are they confident of coming back to the food and the restaurant.”

In the last three months, Dosa Kitchen have been participated in more pop-up events like the weekly Quayside Market, the regular Jesmond Food Market and have even had stalls at the Gosforth Business Park. “Quite a few people come to our restaurant after trying out our food from these markets and some are quite surprised to know that authentic dosas are served in Newcastle,” said Murugavel.

Beth Quinn attended Argie Bhaji to celebrate a friend’s birthday. She said that the event was a great opportunity for her to try restaurants she might not have otherwise gone to. A first-timer at Argie Bhaji, she said that Funky Indian was her personal favourite. 

Thanks to the positive feedback from the events, Hughes said that they will also be introducing a number of incubator concepts next year, including ‘Flower Power’, a vegan event at the Tyne Bank Brewery in January.

Alongside Arjie Bhaji, other headline food events planned by Unit 44 that make a comeback next year include The Battle of the Burger, Slice Wars and Thai Kwondo.