Aakash, Cleckheaton

A converted chapel in Yorkshire is just the right setting for Aakash, a new curry house offering heavenly flavours

The last time I set foot in the building that houses Aakash, which claims to be the "largest Indian restaurant in the world", I was chomping bull's eyes rather than poppadoms. It was in 1959, when my junior school in the West Yorkshire wool town of Cleckheaton trooped in a long, chattering crocodile to the Providence Congregational Church (colloquially known as the "Provvy") for a carol service. The following year, I deserted Cleckheaton for good, as did the wool industry soon after.

The Provvy, an imposing, three-storey structure of soot-ingrained stone, with fittings in gleaming mahogany, fell into desuetude and decay, until its potential as a Brobdingnagian curry house was spotted by a former taxi-rank owner called Iqbal Tabassum. Cleckheaton is an unlikely spot for such a gastronomic landmark. Prior to this, the town's main claim to fame was that someone pinched the railway station, every brick of it. However, Cleckheaton is only seven miles from Bradford, whose 90 or so Asian restaurants include some of the best in Britain.

When the £1.5m eatery opened last month, press reports stated that it occupied "the country's finest example of a mid-Victorian congregational church". In his Buildings of England series, Pevsner is less impressed. "Amazingly pompous for a religious building. More like a town hall than a church," he wrote. Still, we tykes have never been renowned for subtlety of expression.

The stone of the Grade II-listed building has been restored to its original dull gold, which would please the Congregationalists who built it in 1859, but they may be surprised that its grandiose porch, supported by seven Corinthian pillars, now boasts a ceiling painted with fluffy clouds on a bright-blue sky (aakash means sky in Urdu).

The same startlingly rendered empyrean continues inside, with globular chandeliers dangling in profusion. The great organ pipes, which once provided thunderous accompaniment to my reedy rendition of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", have also been painted blue and white. Same goes for the mahogany fixtures, including an extraordinary, skip-sized pulpit, now used by the restaurant's manager as a lookout post.

So that diners do not feel lost in this prodigious space, the tables are occupied in clumps. We were lodged in an outpost on the edge of the ground floor, which seats 250. Closer to heaven, a few brave souls occupied seats on the horseshoe-shaped balcony, where 200 may perch under the ceiling cumuli. Amazingly, a further 400 diners can be accommodated in the basement. Around 350 were present when we dined in Aakash on a Saturday night; today, it is catering simultaneously for two Asian weddings, one with 400 guests, the other with 300.

After being duly impressed by the sympathy of the conversion (English Heritage very much approves), the regimental ranks of retro-Raj chairs, the Cleckheaton tap water in cut-glass decanters (the Provvy's teetotal founders would have approved), the vast acreage of Indian carpet and the magical way that a party of 30 simply vanished in the midst of this nonconformist hangar, it was time to get down to brass tacks. We Yorkshire folk are very fond of brass tacks.

"Let me explain the buffet," our waiter grandly announced. "It's over there. You help yourself." (An à la carte menu should be available shortly.) Negotiating the decorated cast-iron pillars that Pevsner also found a bit iffy ("wildly rusticated"), we headed for the soup tureen, which proved to contain a nicely piquant tomato broth, bolstered with thin ribbons of spinach.

When our wine arrived, our waiter instantly shot approximately a third of a pint into my glass. Just in time, my wife managed to restrain his pouring arm so she got a more standard measure. This was a wise move, since the Muscadet was a thin, acid affair ("light, lemon flavour," warned the wine list) and slightly overpriced even at £11.50. I wish I'd gone for the Cobra beer at £4 for a large bottle, though some plutocrats may feel the need to irrigate their curry with Corton Pougets Grand Cru at £50 a bot.

The big advantage of the buffet (£15 per head) is that you can have a thorough sampling of what the world's largest curry house offers. The big drawback is that you often have to make your way through a scrum of substantial Yorkshire backsides in order to get at the chafing dishes, lined up under the pulpit like gleaming artillery pieces. Observing the tussle, a young woman at the table next to us remarked: "It's just like a wedding. I keep expecting the disco to start."

Among the assorted mound that I retrieved from the battle-zone, I was particularly taken with fish goujons (mahi prudinak tikka) that stood up surprisingly well to being fried in a spicy, lime-rich crust. The warm chickpeas (colle pindi) were a revelation. For the first time in my experience, these items did not resemble bullets recovered from the battle of Balaclava, but were tender and tasty. Similarly, the assorted bhaji were more like vegetable tempura than the usual cannonballs. Chicken in a cardamom-rich sauce (kadhai murgh) and dryish, aromatic lamb stew with fenugreek (methi gost) were both irresistibly moreish. A dark, rich mint sauce was given an interesting crunchiness by the addition of pomegranate seeds. Flecked with cardamom and tiny, golden crescents of saffron, my ground rice pudding (kesar pista phirna) was a dessert from the most sophisticated of nurseries.

Certain aspects of the operation need fine-tuning. The artificial flowers on every table are a mistake, and so are the blue neon clouds above the two bars. When we tried to get a glass of mango-flavoured lassi for dessert, we were told: "We only do it by the jug." Our disco-loving neighbours had to wait an age for their wine. Still, considering the scale of the operation, Aakash is pretty good. It should be better still when more regional specialities are introduced. This Asian gastrodome is certainly a welcome asset for Cleckheaton. I won't wait another 40 years before I come back.

Aakash, Providence Place, Bradford Road, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire (01274 878 866). Daily lunch 12-3pm, dinner 6-11pm. Major cards accepted. Wheelchairs welcome