Restaurant group takes the top place at Asian awards

Mumtaz Ventures, the manufacturing arm of the curry empire chain, was among nine firms which were honoured at the ABDN awards cermony held in Leeds.

Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury, Shadow Community Cohesion Minister and vice-chair of the Conservative Party, was among the guests at the ABDN, which used to be known as the Asian Business Development Network, and took place at Saviles at the Royal Armouries.

The other winners were: Squarefoot Apartments, SME business of the year; Manni Hussain of property firm Cubic Acquisitions, young entrepreneur; PEC Building and Shop Fitting, best company to work for; bespoke cleaning firm JTM Service, Going Green; Farina Tayub from Caremark Leeds, female entrepreneur; renewable energy experts TREE, most promising new business; Jagmohani Manku from Milun Women's Centre, service to the community; and Mohammed Aslam from the restaurant chain Aagrah, breaking barriers lifetime achievement award. More than 900 people attended the event.

Earlier in the week the ABDN and Financial Leeds ran Moving Up 2010, a business conference for entrepreneurs at the venue. It featured presentations on leadership, innovation and access to finance. Speakers include Tom Vosa, chief economist at Yorkshire Bank and Charan Gill, dubbed Scotland's curry king after building up a large chain of Indian restaurants.