The St Albans Curry Club has announced the city’s top curry houses after a year of munching masalas and chewing chapatis.

The six club members chose the Chilli Bar and Kitchen in London Road as the best in St Albans for the third year running, with a score of 8.9 out of 10.

Second on the list was Chilli Raj, followed by Veer Dhara, Cafe Masala, New Gulshan, Zaffran, St Albans Tandoori, Devdas, Alban Tandoori and Mumtaj.

Curry Club member Sam Piller, 40, said: “We go to about 10 different Indian restaurants, and we go on a monthly basis to spread them across the year.

“There’s no formal scoring criteria but everyone does it based on a number of different things; the service, the food and the curry itself.

“Everyone has different curries, and a lot of people will try the same curry in different restaurants. What we are looking for is somewhere that’s got brilliant service, a really nice look to it and somewhere that’s got really good quality food.

“We judge the quality of the poppadoms and condiments to go with the poppadoms as well as the quality of the curry itself.”

Having gained notoriety for their reviews over the years and gained a following on Twitter, the Curry Club was invited to appear on the show ‘Eat Your Heart Out with Nick Helm’ on Dave.

On the programme, comedian Nick Helm, who is from St Albans, visits a city and eats breakfast, lunch and dinner there, meeting different people along the way.

Sam, who lives in Verulam and works in advertising, said: “They were making a new show for Dave and they found us and got in touch.

“He went to The Breakfast Club for breakfast, his mum’s for lunch and the New Gulshan for dinner.

“We were asked to be on the show and have curry with him at the New Gulshan. We jumped at the chance to do that and we had a curry with him and had a good chat and a good laugh. It was great.”

St Albans Curry Club has already started reviewing curry restaurants for 2018.

The show, described as a “highly personal culinary journey around the UK and Europe” was aired in September, but is available to watch online at https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/eat-your-heart-out-with-nick-helm/