BY Anisha Ahmed
anisha@asianexpress.co.uk

Successful chef and business owner Hansa Dabhi has launched her second cook book to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of her Gujarati food establishment.
Her latest book ‘Hansa’s, More than just a restaurant… It’s my life!’ has hit the shelves of Waterstones throughout the country.
The book has chapters on Ayurveda, and information about the different body types of people, a background on Hansa herself and a variety of food recipes which have all featured in her restaurant menu at some point or another.
Funnily enough, Hansa, who is content with just daal and roti for her own meal, said: “I change my menu every 18 months which is why there were so many recipes to choose from. With Gujarati food you can make a different dish every day of the year and still have dishes left over.
“We come from Africa where people have a very inventive mind – you can turn any food into a curry and any vegetable into a snack.”
Originally from Uganda, Hansa moved to the UK in 1971 with her mother and siblings, to join her father who had already moved here the year before.
It was a complete shock to the system when they arrived here as they went from scraping a living, to living in a four bedroom terrace house in the Burley/Hyde Park area of Leeds.
Hansa said: “As soon as I came here I was lucky to be young enough to get into college.”
Her first job was working as a lab assistant at Yorkshire Chemicals and she added: “It was quite exciting because it was the first time I had a wage packet and it was this whole different side of life, because I had more responsibility and was learning how to budget.”
Now at the age of 55, with both her sons happily married, and her award winning restaurant still popular with the locals it would seem that she along with husband Kishor (she calls him Kish) are in a good place.
Kish was the first love of her life, and a good friend of the family, but Hansa had to elope with him to get married against her parents’ wish as he was from a different cast.
She said: “I liked Kish quite a lot but in the 70s it was a big thing in the Asian community to get married within your cast. I was maybe the first person in our whole family history stepping out of the cast system and my parents found it quite hard.
“The whole community came down on them [parents] and I know they found it difficult to handle. It was very traumatic and I knew deep down they would perhaps disown me, but I also knew deep down my parents liked Kish, and knew he was a nice family man.”
It was only after getting married that Hansa really developed a love for food as she would watch and help her mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law cook.
It was after the birth of her sons, and helping out at their nursery’s summer and winter fairs that Hansa realised there was a demand for Gujarati food.
She said: “I started doing food stalls with Gujarati food and people would say what food is this? They would say we eat at Indian restaurants all the time and haven’t heard of these things before.”
Hansa felt like it was her chance to bring Gujarati food to Yorkshire, and began doing cookery demonstrations for the other parents. Though it wasn’t at a professional level it was very popular.
In the meantime after giving up her seven-year job at a post office, she did a lot of volunteer work and worked part time as a social worker which involved working with a lot of Asian women who came from deprived backgrounds, or who had various other problems.
She actually wanted to continue her social work full-time, but at the last minute lost out to another candidate for the role, and it was this that triggered her decision to start her own restaurant.
Hansa wanted to create a family environment where people could come and try her Gujarati, vegetarian cuisine, but at the same time help the underprivileged women by offering them work.
The award winning chef said: “To this day I haven’t let a man in my kitchen and I’m proud of that. I’ve had my chef with me for 24 years and other staff for around 16. Not many people can boast that, and we’re all practically like a family.”
After opening up the restaurant in 1986 the couple have never looked back.
But not forgetting the people of Yorkshire, she said: “I am really proud to be successful in Yorkshire. I think I owe my success to the people here. I came here straight from Africa and it’s the best place God could’ve sent me. The people have been so friendly and I’ve really enjoyed my life here.”
‘Hansa’s, More than just a restaurant… It’s my life!’ is available to purchase from all major bookstores.

Add comment on this article