The debate of where the origins of chicken tikka masala lie — India or the UK — seems to be an evergreen one.

If you were to visit ‘The Curry Mile’ — an area of England that is believed to have the largest concentration of South Asian restaurants in the United Kingdom— you’d find one staple in the restaurants, the chicken tikka masala.

While the dish’s popularity in the UK is reason enough to believe it might be commonplace in the cuisine there, the question is where it originated.

Few topics in history have conjured up as much debate as have a bunch of boneless pieces of chicken, marinated in spices and yoghurt, cooked in a tandoor, brushed with ghee and served in a smooth tomato-cream sauce.

The most accepted story of the dish’s origins involves a Bangladeshi chef at a Scottish restaurant and (multiple sources suggest different professions) a hungry bus driver.

One rainy day in 1971, Chef Ali Ahmed Aslam cooked up a dish (chicken tikka) for a customer who stopped by the Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland.

The customer did not seem too appeased by the order and sent it back to the kitchens terming it “too dry”. Chef Ali decided to make up for the dish’s lacking moisture with a creamy tomato soup.

This seemed to satisfy the bus driver who turned into a loyal customer at the Shish Mahal and made it a point to order the dish on each visit.

Meanwhile, the name and fame of the chicken tikka masala spread far and wide, and restaurants in England were quick to clone the idea, furthering its legacy.

Chef Ali passed in 2022 at the age of 77, but not before he gave multiple interviews that were all aimed at finding out where the origins of the dish truly lie. But, Indians weren’t thrilled with this claim.

In 2009 Mohammad Sarwar, then Labour MP for Glasgow Central, campaigned for the dish to be given EU Protected Designation of Origin status. But the motion was tabled by the House of Commons.

If you were starting to think that the war of chicken tikka masala’s origins were just between the two subcontinents (India and Europe), you are wrong. Within India too there is doubt — is the dish Mogul or Punjabi?

Zaeemuddin Ahmad of the iconic Karim’s restaurant in Delhi, says, “Chicken tikka masala is an authentic Mughlai recipe prepared by our forefathers who were royal chefs in the Mughal period.”

Meanwhile, food critic Rahul Verma claims to have first tasted chicken tikka masala in 1971 and insists it is a Punjabi dish. This belief is shared by many who see the chicken tikka masala as a mutation of the butter chicken, which is (and this is set in stone) the creation of Kundan Lal Gujral, the man behind Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi.

While culinary experts aren’t backing down from whose brainchild the tikka really was, it seems foodies around the world aren’t too bothered by this. As long as the table has a good chicken tikka masala.