Restaurant owner Iqbal Wahhab
was awarded with 'Order of the British Empire' (OBE) in the New Year's honours
list recently.
Wahab, founder of the Cinnamon Club and Roast, won the OBE, one of the highest
honors in the UK, in recognition to his public service and services for
promotion of the hospitality industry.
Iqbal Wahhab was born in Bangladesh and came to Britain at the age of
eight months. He was educated in London and is a graduate of the London School
of Economics.
He left his early media career to launch the multi award winning
Cinnamon Club in 2001 - a restaurant and bar aimed to change the way we view
Indian dining. In 2003 he co-authored The Cinnamon Club Cookbook and in 2005
opened Roast, a restaurant and bar in Borough Market celebrating the best of
British cooking with the best of seasonal British produce.
He works closely with The Prince's Trust, taking children from
under-privileged schools in south east London and spending half days with them
at Roast and taking them on food education programmes around Borough Market.
As chair of EMAG he sits on the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force.
