Johnny Depp's £50,000 curry banquet at UK restaurant sparks flurry of interest

An Indian restaurant in Birmingham has been inundated with phone calls after Johnny Depp dined there on Sunday.

The Hollywood star, whose high-profile lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard came to a close last week, visited Varanasi on Broad Street in central Birmingham the day before he played at the city's Symphony Hall with Jeff Beck.

The curry, including tip, cost "in the neighbourhood of £50,000", approximately $63,000, according to TMZ.

Depp has been joining close friend and guitarist Beck on a string of surprise appearances across the UK. A joint album by the pair is scheduled to be released next month.

On Sunday, Depp and Beck along with their 20-member entourage booked the entire 350-capacity restaurant and dined for more than five hours.

Spread across three floors and 1,850 square metres, the high-end Varanasi is one of Birmingham's largest Indian restaurants; its includes three cocktail bars and six private rooms.

On Instagram, the restaurant said it serves "authentic Indian haute cuisine".

Depp and his team tried 10 different dishes from a special banquet prepared for them by the restaurant's chefs, Varanasi's operations director Mohammed Hussain told the Mail Online.

The spread included starters of shish kebabs, chicken tikka and tandoori king prawns, while for the main course they had butter chicken, paneer tikka masala, lamb karahi and king prawn bhuna, with accompaniments including naan breads, rice and salad.

For dessert though, Depp skipped the traditional Indian options, opting for a panna cotta and cheesecake instead.

"He was a very lovely, down to earth bloke who spent a lot of time speaking with the staff, our friends and family and was happy to pose for pictures with them," Hussain said.

"You would never have thought that he was such a big star. He had a lot of time for us all."

Clearly impressed by the food, Deep even took home a bag of food afterwards.

“He said it was the best curry he had ever had and even went to the extent of asking us to make a new set of food again and take it back to his hotel,” Hussain told The Guardian.

"They spent a lot of money, it's a big venue to hire out, but they never even looked at the bill. He gave a large tip," Hussain told the BBC.

The Dubai connection

Varanasi opened in 2016 and is named after the holy Indian city.

It was “inspired by the opulence and decadence of Dubai" according to the Birmingham Mail, with all the furniture imported from Dubai and from across Asia, including crafted chandeliers shipped in from China.

The menu, which aims to serve "British ingredients to create authentic Indian cuisine with a twist”, has been curated by chef Alfred Prasad, who was at the helm of Tamarind of Mayfair, London, when it received a Michelin star in 2002.

The restaurant has catered to a number of celebrities over the years, but none of Depp's calibre, Hussain said.

“Our Instagram has gone mental. We’ve never seen so much activity on there,” he told The Guardian. “I’ve had phone calls from America, from India, from Spain, Germany, China, and I just literally haven’t had the time to even sit down. It has been manic.”

Last year, another Hollywood star caused a stir in Birmingham when he dined at another Indian restaurant.

Tom Cruise was filming Mission: Impossible 7 in the city when he visited Asha's, owned by famous Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle. The restaurant, which also has branches in the UAE, shared pictures of Cruise along with their staff.

"It was an absolute pleasure to welcome Tom Cruise to Asha's Birmingham yesterday evening. Tom ordered our famous Chicken Tikka Masala and enjoyed it so much that as soon as he had finished, he ordered it all over again — the greatest compliment," they said.

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