From korma to vindaloo: a guide to curry heat

“How hot is it?” is the question we hear most often. Heat is personal, and the same name can mean different things in different restaurants, so here is how the dishes on our menu compare, from the gentlest to the hottest.

Where the heat comes from

Most of the heat in a curry comes from chillies, fresh or dried, along with black pepper and ginger. Cream, yoghurt, coconut, ground almonds and cashews all soften it, which is why the richest, creamiest curries are usually the mildest. Sweet and sour flavours, from tomatoes, lemon or a little sugar, can also round off the heat.

The type of chilli matters too. Fresh green chillies, as in a jalfrezi, give a bright, sharp heat that hits quickly. Dried red chillies give a deeper, slower warmth, and some, such as Kashmiri chillies, add more colour than fire. That is why two curries that look equally red can taste very different.

Mild and creamy

• Korma: cream, almonds and coconut. The gentlest curry on the menu.
• Pasanda: mild and creamy, with almonds and cashew nuts.
• Tikka Masala: tikka in a mild, creamy onion and tomato sauce.
• Curry: cooked in a mild onion gravy.
• Bhuinkatar Chicken and Everest Chicken: two Nepalese signatures, one with pineapple, the other with an almond sauce.

Medium

• Bhuna and Rogan Josh: rich, well-spiced sauces of medium strength.
• Balti, Dupiaza, Dhansak, Saagwala and Achari: each with its own character, from onions to lentils to pickling spices.
• Kadai: delicately spiced with tomatoes, onions and capsicum, a step below madras.

Hot

• Jalfrezi: fresh green chillies with onions, peppers and tomatoes, slightly less hot than madras.
• Pathiya: fairly hot, sweet and sour.
• Madras: tomato and spices give it a fiery richness.
• Gurkha Rifle: chicken with ginger, garlic and lemon in a sweet, sour and hot sauce.

Very hot

• Vindaloo: plenty of garlic, ginger, lemon and black pepper, and a lot of heat.
• Meat Akbare: our hottest signature dish, made with Akbare chillies, small round chillies from the hills of eastern Nepal and Sikkim that are famous for their fierce heat.

Ordering for a group

When you are ordering for several people, mix the heat levels. A korma or tikka masala, a medium bhuna or rogan josh and one hot dish gives everyone something they are happy with. Plain rice, naan and a dal help cool things down between mouthfuls. If children are joining in, our kids menu has chicken nuggets, chicken omelette and chips, and a mild korma with plain rice is a gentle first curry. If you are not sure how hot something will be, call us before you order and we will talk you through it. Look for the chilli symbols on our menu: one chilli is gentle, three is very hot.

New to curry? Our guide to where curry-house classics come from explains what each name means.