East Preston’s Reema Bengali Cuisine‘s glowing reputation is spreading far and wide
As a former full-time taxi driver Abubakr Siddiq has all the requisite customer service skills to run a restaurant: a friendly and efficient approach, the ability to make customers feel at ease the moment they sit down, patience and a determination to go the extra mile. When you pair this with his exceptional cooking, it’s little wonder that Reema Bengali Cuisine, located in the seaside town of East Preston between Littlehampton and Worthing, has been wowing diners ever since he took over the business in 2021 (the restaurant was first established in 1991).
Abubakr was keen to manage a restaurant because of his passion for food and his desire to start a family business. Both he and his brother Abu Musa are in charge of the kitchen, while other family members – namely Abubakr’s son and daughter, manage front of house. Musa honed his skills as a chef over many years, some of which were spent in Belgium working at various hotels. Over the last year – when the restaurant won the coveted Best Restaurants of the Year Award at the Curry Life Awards, bookings at the Restaurant, particularly during the weekends, have gone through the roof.
“The Christmas period was insanely busy – winning the award has been a great accolade for the business,” explains Abubakr and his daughter Fariah. “We have so many customers visiting who had heard of our award and who wanted to try the food, so we had to improvise a lot of skills and manage these. We’ve had to recruit more waiting staff and train them; it’s been great to introduce them to our business. And meeting new customers has been really enjoyable too, it puts a smile on all our faces.”
With increased demand – particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, the restaurant had to rethink its booking systems. This involved managing issues such as booking start times and how long bookings can be for, particularly for large groups, to ensure they can serve as many customers as possible and still maintain high levels of service and food quality.
Catch of the day
Being located by the coast, fish and seafood are an obvious star of many of the restaurant’s dishes, particularly king prawn. Choose from appetisers such as king prawn lajawab, with prawns cooked in a mild sauce featuring coconut and crisp potatoes, or the ‘Reema Special’ featuring King Prawn Balti. There’s also the Mejban-e-Gusth, a traditional lamb curry originating from the port city of Chittagong in Bangladesh. It’s a medium spicy dish containing coconut, almond, mustard seed and podini mint cooked in a thick ginger flavour sauce. The Railway Tava lamb, modelled on a classic spicy dish once served on first-class trains in India, is also popular. New dishes will be introduced this summer, featuring Bangladeshi fusion flavours and chillies and Abubakr is more than happy to create spicier dishes, depending on customers’ tastes.
“Many of our customers really like a spicy kick and we’re very happy to vary tastes according to palates,” says Fariah. This extends to adjusting dishes for vegans, substituting ingredients with coconut milk, and excluding ghee.”
Authenticity isn’t just about the dishes too. Visit the restaurant and the decor is equally pleasing to the eye. Creating a more authentic look and feel is an area the restaurant has invested in more recently, with walls featuring paintings brought over the last year following a trip to Bangladesh.
Rising reputation
Like many other small businesses, Reema Bengali is steeling itself for the impact of higher costs in the next few months – owing mainly to new policies such as higher national insurance contributions, which came into force in April. And while the business has been busier than ever before on Fridays and Saturdays, trade in the early part of the week, such as Tuesdays and Wednesdays, tends to be much slower. The restaurant has stepped up its advertising on social media and also distributes menus to encourage takeaways. It’s also increased its prices slightly and says that customers have not commented on any increases but are understanding of hikes in the cost of living.
Next on the restaurant’s agenda is continuing to spread its reputation far and wide to the surrounding areas beyond Littlehampton.
“We have got really good feedback from a lot of our customers but we don’t want to look at opening other branches or franchises just yet,” says Abubakr. “We love being an independent business with a growing reputation and word-of-mouth is really important for extending that reputation.”
While Fariah agrees that many people use social channels such as Facebook, she says they may only see a post for one or two seconds and then instantly forget about it.
“It’s really important for us to focus on good customer service and word-of-mouth, especially with our new recruits, with everyone being very communicative and responding to our customer base,” she says.
Abubakr still works as a taxi driver in the mornings; judging from the restaurant’s success, he will certainly have his plate full in the coming months!
- Reema Bengali Cuisine
- 130-132 Sea Road, East Preston, Littlehampton BN16 1NN
