We love a curry and adore Chinese. Now the hunt for Britain’s next big ethnic cuisine is getting really exotic, reports Jerome Taylor

There was a time when popping out for a Chinese or an Indian was considered the height of international culinary sophistication. Be it a powerfully flavoured rogan josh or a frighteningly fluorescent sweet-and-sour pork, India and China dominated Britain’s ethnic cuisine scene ever since the first batch of hardworking immigrants brought their piquant spices halfway around the world and opened up restaurants on our shores.

Then came the Thai and Sushi invasions of the mid-1990s as Britain’s army of gap-year backpacker and health-conscious travellers trekked further afield for their next Eastern culinary fix. Now, research suggests our tastes are changing once more as a new era of mass immigration and global travel brings an ever-more varied and exciting array of foodstuffs to our shores.

Two new reports suggest that dishes from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Morocco are emerging as Britain’s new culinary kings. Sainsbury’s has recently been experimenting by introducing Moroccan-, Afghan- and Ethiopian-inspired foods into their ranges with impressive results. Sales of Moroccan green tea have risen by 426 per cent in a year while dried mung bean sales have doubled.

Meanwhile, a survey by the market analysts Mintel has found a similar increasing interest in North African and Middle Eastern cooking.

The reason is two-fold. Firstly, Britain is home to a growing Middle Eastern and African diaspora – many of whom have set up their own restaurants like the Bangladeshis and Cantonese before them. Secondly, the Mintel research suggests that holidaymakers returning from countries such as Morocco and Egypt – which has seen a 125 percent increase in British tourists between 2003 and 2007 – are searching for a taste of their trip back home.

So what will be 21st-century Britain’s ethnic food trend? With immigrants from East Africa and Afghanistan now making up some of the largest groups of asylum-seekers to Britain, will we one day head for an Afghan or a Somalian after a hard night’s drinking in the local boozer?

Influenced by its neighbours but distinctly home-grown, Afghan food has all the potential flavours that ought to appeal to the British palate. For those who like something a little more quirky than Middle Eastern food but less fiery than North Indian cuisine, Central Asian cooking offers the perfect compromise with its delicately spiced palaus (rice dishes), kebabs and stews.

In recent years, a small number of Afghan restaurants have opened in London where the vast majority of Britain’s Afghans live. Rafik Muhammadi opened the Afghan Khayber Restaurant in Ealing, west London, with his friend and colleague Hamid in 2003. Since then he has seen a steady stream of customers looking to try the gentle spiced stews and flat-bread that makes Afghan cooking a source of national pride.

“Now we get many different people eating here – Afghan, Pakistani, Bengali and British,” he beams. “People like Afghan food because it has less chilli and ghee than Pakistani and Indian food.” Asked what his restaurant’s best dish is, he replies: “All of them! Every dish here is good.”

By Jerome Taylor