Meet the founder — Syed Bashar
A hardworking family kitchen, still trying to be the best in town.
A hardworking family kitchen
Jaflong Tandoori is owned and run by the Syed family. Our proprietor, Syed Bashar, is usually in the restaurant himself — greeting guests, checking plates before they leave the pass and calling suppliers first thing in the morning. There is no head office and no chain playbook, just a family that takes every review personally.
That means we improve in small steps rather than big announcements: a curry base retested, a delivery route tightened, a dish rewritten on the menu because guests kept asking for it milder. We have kept a 5/5 Food Hygiene Rating and a 4.9 average across 5,700+ reviews by treating both as something to protect, not something to advertise once and forget.
Our meat comes from trusted halal suppliers. We are not a separately certified halal premises, and we would rather say that plainly than let anyone assume otherwise.
- Role
- Founder & proprietor
- From
- Sylhet, Bangladesh
- In hospitality
- Since the 1980s
- Opened Jaflong Tandoori
- 2008, Richmond upon Thames
The beginning — from Sylhet to South West London
Syed Bashar's story began in Sylhet, Bangladesh, in a family where food, hospitality and looking after others were part of everyday life.
The values he carried with him were straightforward but demanding: work hard, respect people, never cut corners simply because nobody is watching, help those around you where you can, and never serve somebody something you would not be happy to put on your own family's table.
When Syed arrived in Britain in the 1980s, he did not arrive as a restaurateur. He built his career from the ground up. South West London became his training ground.
Twickenham, Hampton, Kingston and eventually Ham and Richmond each became chapters in a career spent learning restaurants from every side of the pass — waiting tables, looking after customers, managing teams, working behind the scenes and learning how the kitchen itself operated.
For Syed, hospitality was never just about cooking a good curry. It was the combination of food, consistency, organisation and the way a customer felt when they walked through the door. That belief would eventually become the foundation of Jaflong Tandoori.
Learning the trade from the ground up
Syed's early years in South West London's restaurant industry were practical rather than glamorous. At Sheesh Mahal in Twickenham, he worked his way through the realities of restaurant life — front-of-house service, customer relationships, management responsibilities and the workings of the kitchen.
He did not want to understand only one half of the business. He learnt what happened before a plate reached the dining room: preparation, kitchen organisation, the pass and eventually the cooking itself.
Family interviews and archive material also place Syed at Monafs in Hampton, where he took on significant management responsibility during the 1980s. Over time he also worked around Britain and abroad, including experience in Leicester and Norway, absorbing different approaches to restaurants while maintaining his South West London roots.
A pattern followed Syed through the businesses he helped operate: quality, consistency and customer service came first.
Deea — Syed's proving ground
By the early 2000s Syed had spent years learning how restaurants worked. Deea Bangladeshi Cuisine in Kingston upon Thames became his proving ground.
The Bashar family account describes this period as the point where Syed was able to put years of front-of-house, management and kitchen experience together: sharpening food quality, improving consistency, building customer relationships and helping grow the profile and performance of the business.
The Bashar family records a period of substantial growth during Syed's time at Deea. Family records and newspaper clippings documenting awards, chef recognition and local press attention from this chapter are held in the family archive.
From experience to a family legacy
After years spent building other restaurants and learning the trade, Syed wanted something different. He wanted a business that belonged to his family — a place where the standards he had spent his career developing could be carried forward under one name, and eventually passed to his children.
Richmond offered that opportunity. Syed already understood the communities surrounding Twickenham, Hampton, Kingston, Ham and Richmond. His family was putting down roots in South West London, and he could see demand for the kind of neighbourhood Indian restaurant he believed in: personal, dependable and built around long-term relationships rather than anonymous volume.
In 2008, Jaflong Tandoori opened at 16 Ashburnham Road, Richmond upon Thames, TW10 7NF.
The beginning was not glamorous. The family put their heart and soul into turning a struggling premises into something customers could believe in. Long days became late nights. Everybody helped where they could. Syed cooked, managed, dealt with suppliers and customers. Family members answered phones, helped with orders, served customers and gradually learnt the business alongside him.
Jaflong was not built through a launch campaign. It was built order by order, customer by customer and year by year.
Why Jaflong? A name carried from childhood
The name Jaflong was never chosen from a marketing list. For Syed, it already meant home.
Jaflong in Sylhet is known for its clear river water, smooth pale stones, streams and views towards the surrounding hills. But Syed remembers it more personally.
His father would take Syed, his siblings and the wider family there on childhood trips — time spent together beside the water and stone-lined riverbank, away from ordinary routines. Those journeys became part of Syed's memories of his parents, his siblings and the values with which he was raised.
So when the time came to place a name above his own restaurant thousands of miles away in Richmond, Jaflong felt natural. It became a tribute to where Syed came from, to his parents and to the family legacy he hoped to build for his own children.
What Syed stands for
Hospitality
Make people feel that you are pleased they came.
Quality
Never lower the standard simply because it is easier.
Consistency
A favourite dish should still taste like a favourite dish next week.
Improvement
There is always something that can be done better.
A career in food
A working chronology drawn from family interviews and the Bashar family archive. It improves as more documents are catalogued.
A new beginning in Britain
South West London
Syed arrives in Britain from Sylhet, Bangladesh and begins building a life for himself and his future family in South West London.
Sheesh Mahal, Twickenham
Twickenham
Syed builds his restaurant foundations at Sheesh Mahal in Twickenham. Starting from the ground up, he learns front-of-house hospitality, customer service and restaurant operations while increasingly understanding management and the kitchen itself.
Monafs, Hampton
Hampton
Hampton becomes another formative chapter. The Bashar family records Syed managing and helping run Monafs during the 1980s, developing the operational and customer-service skills that would define his later restaurants.
Learning beyond one restaurant
Syed's hospitality career takes him through different restaurants and locations, including experience in Britain and abroad, from London and Leicester to Norway. Each kitchen and dining room adds another layer of experience — service, staffing, management, ingredients and cooking. Eventually South West London becomes the permanent base for his growing family.
Deea Bangladeshi Cuisine, Kingston
Kingston upon Thames
Deea becomes one of the defining chapters of Syed's career. The Bashar family describes it as his proving ground: a period in which he helped grow the business, sharpen food standards, build customer loyalty and gain significant local recognition.
Jaflong Tandoori opens in Richmond
Richmond upon Thames
Syed establishes Jaflong Tandoori at 16 Ashburnham Road. After years spent learning and building restaurants elsewhere, this is the family legacy he can finally call his own. The name pays tribute to Jaflong in Sylhet and the childhood memories associated with Syed's father and family.
Building Jaflong the hard way
The early years are driven by relentless family effort. Syed and his family work long days and nights rebuilding a struggling business into a trusted Richmond name. Everybody contributes. The restaurant grows through consistency, word of mouth and repeat customers rather than corporate backing.
The next generation learns the business
As Syed's children grow older, they begin helping around school, university and their own careers. His sons and daughters contribute in different ways: customer service, orders, technology, events, marketing and restaurant operations. They learn the business by working alongside their father rather than entering it only when fully grown.
Ham Fair and community roots
Ham, Richmond upon Thames
Proud Ham Fair stallholder since 2011.
A changing ordering industry
Jaflong experiences the transition from telephone ordering and paper menus to online ordering, delivery platforms and digital customer relationships. The business adapts through the Just Eat era, Hungryhouse and the emergence of new delivery marketplaces while continuing to develop its own direct customer relationships.
Customers turn a takeaway into a dining room
By the middle of the decade, customers were doing something the original takeaway was never designed for: they were staying. People would collect their curry, sit on the couches at the front, eat and talk to Syed and the team. Again and again they asked when Jaflong would let them dine in properly. The family listened, and the front of the premises was developed into a comfortable casual dining space. Jaflong became both a takeaway and a neighbourhood dining room.
Adapting through the pandemic
The family adapts the business through the pandemic, keeping the kitchen running for the local community and supporting people around it where they could.
Catering and events grow
Jaflong increasingly takes the family kitchen beyond Ashburnham Road, catering weddings, family celebrations, schools and PTAs, corporate occasions, university events, community events, fairs and festivals. Around 500 events catered.
Building the next chapter
The restaurant, direct-ordering operation and dedicated catering business continue evolving. Syed remains at the heart of Jaflong while the next generation increasingly helps shape its future. The objective is not to turn Jaflong into an anonymous chain; it is to make the family business stronger, preserve what customers have trusted since 2008 and keep serving Richmond and the wider community for the next generation.
More than a restaurant
A business built to give something back
Jaflong is established today, but Syed's ambition for it has become broader rather than simply bigger. The family wants the business to be useful to the community that helped build it.
That means supporting local schools, community groups, charities, fairs and events; bringing Jaflong into family celebrations and corporate occasions through catering; and supporting causes both locally and in Bangladesh where the family can make a meaningful difference.
For Syed, success has value only if some of it can be used to help the people around you. That principle goes back to the values he learnt from his parents in Sylhet — and it is one he wants the next generation of the Bashar family to carry forward.
Kingston Hospital
Meals donated to frontline NHS workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shalini Yadav Fund
Raised £2,500 for a young woman's rare skin condition treatment through a charity dinner.
Sylhet, Bangladesh
Annual aid programme providing clothing, food and housing materials to rural communities in Syed's home region.
Ham Fair
Proud Ham Fair stallholder since 2011 at Richmond's largest community festival.
Local schools
Fundraising host for Hollyfield, Grey Court and King Athelstan Primary schools.
How this history was recorded
Family history provided and reviewed by Syed Bashar and the Bashar family. Based on first-hand family interviews, business records, photographs, menus, awards and press archive material held by the Bashar family. Not every family memory has been independently verified.
Last reviewed: August 2026.
Come and say hello
Syed is usually in the restaurant. Book a table or order online and see the family kitchen for yourself.