HANSA DABHI – BRINGING A LITTLE BIT OF GUJURAT TO LEEDSCHEF Hansa Dabhi has been at the forefront of bringing Indian Vegetarian Cuisine to the mainstream restaurant scene in Leeds and Yorkshire since 1986. Her all women staff serve her blend of Gujarati Vegetarian home-cooking with touches of her East African upbringing.

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ACHIEVEMENTS Hansa’s cooking has been highly acclaimed and won her many awards over the years, Curry Chef of the Year three times by The Leeds Guide and the latest being voted, ‘Vegetarian Restaurant of the Year 2013 by Pat Chapman of the Curry Club UK. Being recognised for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Leeds Restaurant Industry’ by the Leeds Restaurant Association in 2008 was the crowning glory of Hansa’s achievements to date.

Hansa’s Indian Vegetarian Cookbook, which she self-published, is highly acclaimed by the food critics of the Times, the Guardian and the Observer and was voted as the Best Vegetarian Cookbook by the Independent in 2011. She has followed it by self-publishing her second cookbook - ‘Hansa’s, more than just a restaurant, it’s my life! – with more of her mouth-watering recipes and also celebrates her 25 years in business. This also received rave reviews from The Guardian as well as The Observer.

PASSING ON KNOWLEDGEHansa regularly carries out cookery demonstrations for schools and PTAs to encourage children and parents to learn how to enjoy good vegetarian delicacies. Hansa is now onto her second series of her a monthly ‘hands-on cookery lessons’ for her customers, to give them the confidence to tackle Indian Vegetarian cooking. The first series was so popular that she had to lay on additional classes to meet the demand.

Hansa and her husband Kishor have also been taking small groups of their customers on guided tours to her native Gujarat and other parts of India, through Hansa’s Heritage Tours, to give them the real experience of the mother country. They also organise charity events, undertake party hosting and go trekking to raise funds for their ‘One teacher Schools Projects’ in India and Nepal, organised by ‘The 3Rs Education Trust in UK.’

Hansa’s is indeed more than just a restaurant!

ABOUT HANSAHansa was born in Fort Portal in Uganda, East Africa, off Indian parents. She has pin-sharp memories of her arrival in Leeds in 1972 at the age of 16. Her first impression of Yorkshire was of a vast number of small factories – she didn’t realize that they were actually the chimneys of ordinary houses giving off clouds of smoke. Although the temperatures were on the low side, the Yorkshire welcome was very warm, and it didn’t take Hansa long to feel at home in the city.

She studied for her O-Levels and left to work for Yorkshire Chemicals in Leeds as a technician then moved onto the Post Office Computer Centre as a VDU operator. She met and eloped to

get married to Kishor in 1977. In due course she took time off for maternity leave to bring up her two sons. This is when she developed her culinary skills and soon decided that that is what she’d love to do in the future.

In 1986 she opened Hansa’s Gujarati Vegetarian Restaurant, the first of its kind in the North. She soon developed a tremendous following and awards and recognition followed by the food critics, the news media and the likes.

The iconic Hansa’s Restaurant has become a ‘must visit place when in Leeds’ as promoted by The Leeds Tourist Guide and Hansa herself has become a proud daughter of Leeds and Yorkshire. She is very impressed with the regeneration of her adopted city and with how it has become the cosmopolitan financial center of the North. The Yorkshire countryside has fostered her love of walking and the outdoors. Hansa says Leeds is a great base for trips to places like Otley Chevin, Ilkley and the Yorkshire Dales. In fact, she has now become a serious walker herself – she climbed Mount Kenya in 2009 for charities in Kenya and supporting the ‘One Teacher Schools in India and Nepal’. She has ambitions to get to the base camp at Mount Everest.

For more information about Hansa’s, visit the website on http://www.hansasrestaurant.com/ or call them on 0113 244 4408. Alternatively, give them a visit at Hansa’s Restaurant

72/74 North Street, Leeds, LS2 7PN.

HANSA DABHI – BRINGING A LITTLE BIT OF GUJURAT TO LEEDS

Tina Fox, Chief Executive-The Vegetarian Society

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