As any Londoner will know, Brick Lane is adorned with Indian and Bengali restaurants. One of these purports itself as The King of Brick Lane.

Considering it won three different awards in 2017, perhaps the title is deserved?

City Spice took the top prize as Best Restaurant in London at the Asian Curry Awards at the end of last year, their third major industry award in 12 months.

The family business had previously won the best restaurant prize at both the Bangladeshi Caterers Awards and the Masterchef Awards City Spice owner Abdul Ahad says: “It’s been a great year and we’re delighted to pick up another award win. If I didn’t work in a restaurant, I would say we’ve won more awards than I’ve had hot dinners.

“The prestige of this award is huge. We know the public love us, we get their feedback all the time, but to get the recognition of our peers on the panel was really special. We aspire to run our restaurant to the highest standards, so to be judged positively by those who have already reached that standard is really humbling.”

The Asian Curry Awards sees over 35,000 members cast over 100,000 nominations to find the country’s best curry houses, making it one of the most sought-after awards in the country.

I went along last week to judge the place for myself… To start I had the Prawn Puree (£5.50), prawns are fried in chillies, onions and spices and served in a light puree bread.

I was blown away. It was so wonderfully flavoured with such strong mixtures of textures and tastes, it was one of the nicest things I have eaten in a long time.

My partner made a less wise choice, going for the King Prawn Butterfly (£5.95) which is bread crumbed and fried. It is simply what it says on the tin, so to speak, but slightly lacking in flavour and needing a sauce I would say.

He kept it simple again with his main, going for a classic prawn bhuna (£9.95). This, of course, had much more flavour and was wonderfully created.

I was torn by one of their most popular dishes, Sylheti Lamb Shank (£14.95), of tender lamb shanks cooked Bengali style, slow roasted with aromatic herbs, spices and saffron; or the original recipe Curryleaf Lamb (£10.95), with ginger, curry leaves and a medium sauce with “authentic flavour”.

As it is a recipe curated by the restaurant itself I went for the latter, and it was another great choice on my part.

Again, it was a dish with extraordinary flavour and was perfectly accompanied by some pilau rice (£3.25) and garlic naan (£3.50).

City Spice, 138 Brick Lane, E1 6RU