While the second city may be famous for its ubiquitous balti, the cooking at Lasan has taken Indian food into a new age. This is stunning stuff, innovative, well thought-out and beautifully light, as seen in dishes such as yoghurt and mint marinated fillet of lemon sole, tandoori roasted and served with tomato cucumber salad and mint coriander dressing, or seared breast of duck served with onion and tomato curry flavoured with roasted coconut, poppy and melon seeds. Even the desserts are excellent – and it’s not often that the pudding list in an Indian restaurant wins plaudits too. The surroundings are as upmarket as the food, though the ultra-modern interior has a lot of hard surfaces which bounce the noise around and can give you a bit of an ear-bashing when it’s busy. But it looks great and deserves its 2007 British Curry Award.