Glasgow Heritage

Ali Aslam was born on 1st April 1945 in a small village near Lahore, Punjab, British India (now Punjab, Pakistan). In either 1958 or 1959, he moved with his family to Glasgow as a young boy. His father, Noor Mohammed, opened what is considered the first true Indian restaurant in Glasgow, the Green Gates on Bank Street, in 1959. Ali was married and had five children. One of his sons, Asif Ali, spoke about his father's dedication towards charity work in Scotland and Pakistan.

Though the origin of the dish is not certain, he is credited with inventing chicken tikka masala, "Britain's favourite curry", by improvising a sauce made from a tin of condensed tomato soup, and spices. Quoted, he recounted the incident as follows: "Chicken tikka masala was invented in this restaurant, we used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, 'I'd take some sauce with that, this is a bit dry'. We thought we'd better cook the chicken with some sauce. So from here we cooked chicken tikka with the sauce that contains yogurt, cream, spices." Ali said it was his gift to the city of Glasgow and he later campaigned unsuccessfully for the dish to be granted Protected Designation of Origin status by the European Union.

Ali died of septic shock and organ failure in Glasgow on 19 December 2022, at age 77. His funeral was held at Glasgow Central Mosque the next day, with members of the public invited to attend.