Not a mile and not much curry: things are changing on Wilmslow Road

It’s a common misconception, but the so-called ‘Curry Mile’ is not, in fact, a mile long. If you were to say it starts a little south of Whitworth Park, where the Tescos and the Poundlands become shisha bars and karak street-punters, and ends a few strides before Platt Fields, then Google Maps would have it at some 0.65km. A 2023 Guardian article claims it to be just over a half-mile long, but I don’t know how they got this figure, and I don’t necessarily trust it. But while the true length of Manchester’s famous South-Asian stretch is shrouded in mystery, another point of contention about the name ‘Curry Mile’ seems to be increasingly common knowledge. That is, that these days, Wilmslow Road isn't actually selling that much curry.

The Curry Mile is the nickname for a segment of Wilmslow Road, just after it’s finished being Oxford Road, in Rusholme, once considered to have the highest concentration of South Asian restaurants in the UK. The street gained its moniker in the ‘80s, but the restaurants began to appear 20 years previously, when migrants from the Asian subcontinent, primarily Pakistan, began to set up shop. It marked a crucial shift for Manchester’s South Asian community, when Pakistanis who came to the city as textile workers employed by white English bosses first became self-employed — often by running a restaurant, a shop, or a taxi rank. The Curry Mile was hugely popular, and by the ‘80s became a destination for South Asians throughout the UK, as well as white English people who had few other places to try traditional Pakistani food. But the last fifteen years have seen a noticeable influx of other communities to the stretch, namely Middle Easterners and Emiratis, who brought new kinds of businesses to Wilmslow Road. These days, the Curry Mile is perhaps better known for its shawarma shops, and less for its Pakistani cuisine.