After all, isn’t that what families are for? The 82-seat restaurant currently employs seven family members. Whenever there’s a new vacancy, another trained Thanki slides into place.

"Cooking’s in the blood," he explains. "The chef’s my cousin. He learnt how to cook from my uncle and aunt. And they learnt how to cook from my grandfather back in Uganda."

Until recently, the Kastoori was pretty typical of Indian restaurants in Britain. The majority relied on family to make up staff numbers. All it took was a telephone call home to the Indian subcontinent and a cousin was on his way over to help out.

And if the immigration people were a bit slow in granting work permits? Well, the kids - born and bred over here, no problem with passports - were growing up and helping out at weekends.

As their children did their homework, Indian restaurateurs watched the mainstream wrestle with a severe skills shortage without too much worry. The Indian sector would be okay. The children would pass their exams and go to university and study accountancy. . . and eventually take over the family tandoor, the family karahi.

Today, however, this cozy reliance on family has gone. Restaurateurs from Britain’s Asian communities are finding it just as difficult to attract new catering recruits as their mainstream counterparts.

A look at mainstream statistics shows the seriousness of the problem. Mayday Staff Services, a catering recruitment agency, reports a 30 per cent increase in vacancies for permanent chefs over the last two years. In 1996, when the company interviewed 80 catering managers, 86 per cent agreed that there was a shortage of people able to perform skilled catering work.

According to the Hospitality Training Foundation (HTF), what’s making the crisis worse is that 339, 000 staff are actually leaving the industry each year. Yet, with the industry entering a boom period, the HTF estimates that 310, 000 new vacancies will be created between now and 2004.

So far, the slack hasn’t been taken up by new recruits. Student intake levels for hotel and catering courses have stayed fairly even over the last few years. But, says Mayday, 10 per cent of catering students drop out from college; 30 per cent choose a different career at the end of their training; a further 10 per cent leave the industry later.

So, what’s causing the crisis? Industry analysts cite the bad public image of catering; the poor pay and long hours that absolute beginners can expect; the lack of a "service culture" in the UK; the feeling that catering doesn’t cut it as a profession; the lack of good courses; the lack of investment in training by employers; the recent emergence of "mega" restaurants which take all the talent. Debate continues over which factors are most to blame.

All apply to a greater or lesser extent to the Indian sector. What’s becoming clear, however, is that Indian restaurateurs, far from sitting on the periphery of the crisis, are caught smack in the middle.

Last month, Keith Vaz MP promised to raise the matter in the House of Commons. Government delay in granting work permits to skilled Indian chefs was causing great problems for the Indian restaurant sector, he said.

But there’s more to the "curry crisis" than a problem with getting permits. Getting chefs from India is a short-term solution to a deep-rooted problem.

The younger Asian generation have become "totally switched off" from catering as a careers option, says Tariq Chaudhry, Business Development Manager at the Birmingham Asian Business Association (BABA).

"Family restaurants are disappearing at a very fast rate. The children have seen how hard their parents have had to work and they’re saying: ‘That’s not for me.’"

Certainly, young Asians are put off the industry’s low pay and long hours. But, perhaps more than this, they reject the path trodden by their parents because they have high career aspirations and above average examination results. With a particularly keen desire to join the professions - the law, accountancy, medicine, rightly or wrongly, they tend not to regard catering as a profession.

Don Hacker, Student Coordinator at the 800-strong Birmingham College of Food, while talking enthusiastically about balti, about his students’ enthusiasm for Indian cuisine generally, about the high quality of catering schools in the Indian sub continent, says he can only think of one British Asian student who went on from the College to become a successful chef. He calls it: "A great shame".

At the sharp end, this translates into lost business opportunities. Raza Ali runs Mirch Masala, a 60-seat "restaurant-cum-stylish café" in south London. His wife is the restaurant’s head chef; she "loves cooking". But she doesn’t have enough staff. So, even with help from Ali and his brother, it’s difficult to consider expanding.

"If I could get two or three people who work the way we do, we’d branch out," Ali says. "But youngsters don’t listen. They could make a really good career out of this - there’s a lot of money in catering - but I haven’t seen any who are at all keen."

However, the problem is not just that youngsters can’t see the opportunities that the sector has to offer, argues Charan Gill, owner of the Glasgow-based Harlequin Leisure Group. He blames the restaurateurs themselves and their unwillingness to invest in training.

With 12 Indian restaurants, Gill knows a thing or two about how to attract staff and then hang onto them. He advises restaurateurs looking for a steady supply of talent to first take a good look at themselves. They need to become good managers. Then, the formula for staffing success becomes a straightforward one: good managers, good strategic thinking, attracts good staff who are happy, work well and tend not to leave.

But, as Hacker points out, this isn’t something that can be done over night. "I think most Asian restaurateurs recognize the importance of training up their staff. But catering is a pressurized industry. Once you get on that treadmill, it’s hard to jump off and stop and plan staff development."

Atique Choudhury, owner of Yum Yum Thai restaurant in London, agrees with Gill’s analysis, but adds that the "new breed of business people will change".

And help is coming. Choudhury chaired a national HTF project looking at the issue of Asian restaurateurs and staff training provision. In March, the project published a guidance document, from an Asian perspective. It gives information on ways to tackle assessments and how to receive government funding for training initiatives.

The project also intends to revise National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) to take into account the particular needs of Asian restaurateurs. In practice, this might include introducing new ways of testing candidates: there’s not much point asking a chef to complete a written test in English if his English is poor; it might make more sense to video him going about his work.

Another HTF-backed project, in conjunction with the Bangladeshi Caterers Association (BCA), has recently put 12 restaurants from London’s Brick Lane through a programme that enables them to write and implement their own training plans.

Other local projects across the country aim to raise the sector’s training standards and profile.

Claire Jolly, HTF Senior Consultant and responsible for running the national project, says that the Indian sector and its approach to training is changing. "There’s a lot happening out there."

But BABA’s Tariq Chaudhry doubts whether the sector can change quickly enough. "It’s a case of educating restaurateurs," he says. "Unfortunately, there’s no short-term fix. It’s a very long-term strategy in a slow learning situation.

"The danger is that I can’t see a future for Indian restaurants 20, 30 years down the line. By then, I don’t think there’s going to be anyone left to keep the restaurants in business."