'Hard work' the recipe for success at Windsor restaurant in UK top 100

A Windsor restaurant has rustled a recipe for success after scooping two national awards.  

Mango Lounge, headed by Ashwani Kumar, has been recognized as one of the UK’s top 100 restaurants at the Asian Catering Federation Awards 2024.

The Datchet Road restaurant’s chef of 13 years Vishal Verma also won best chef in the south-east, in an awards ceremony at the House of Lords this month presented by BBC anchor Samantha Simmonds.

“I was really pleased,” Vishal said. “Making food is a passion for me.”

The 42-year-old from Slough, moved to the UK in 2010 from Himachal Pradesh in India.

He bought with him home-cooked lessons handed down from his mother.

“Cooking has been a habit for me, for a long time since childhood,” he said.

“At home, I helped my mum and she taught me how to make dishes and slowly my interest became cooking and I became a chef.”

To win the ward Vishal, entered a live cook-off challenge.

He prepared a dish of pan-fried seabass, along with a side of scallops and sauteed asparagus to start.

Then followed a partridge breast stuffed with spinach and sweet chili peppers, on a base of mustard-tempered potatoes.

And there were no secret recipes or ingredients behind the restaurant’s winning formula, Vishal revealed.

The proof in the pudding was hard work.

“I’m very passionate about the work I do – it’s just about working very hard,” he said.  

"I try to learn something new every day and once I know how to make it, I’ll try and learn how to do it in a different way to be creative.

“Sometimes I come into work early and I’ll spend maybe 10, 12 hours in the kitchen because I’m trying something new.”

Vishal with his award (left) and the Mango Lounge team

You can view the full list of winners at the Asian Curry Awards here.