What is it about?
Bangladeshi restaurateurs on Brick Lane navigate the Islamic prohibition on alcohol while running licensed curry houses through what the article terms 'pragmatic piety': flexible practices balancing religious commitments, commercial survival and concerns for honour. Drawing on ethnography from the Brick Lane-Banglatown project (2018–2024), it reveals a marked north–south divide along the street, with curry restaurants concentrated in the south and varying in their business models from licensed restaurants to alcohol-free cafés. Life-course shifts among restaurateurs, including heightened observance after Hajj, often deepen personal piety without ending alcohol sales—especially when ownership structures allow shared responsibility. These moral and practical compromises unfold against gentrification and changing consumption patterns that threaten the curry-house economy itself.
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Photo by Flavio Vallone on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Brick Lane exemplifies how British Bangladeshi entrepreneurs in east London negotiate faith, identity and economics under pressure. These restaurateurs' 'pragmatic piety' reveals multiculturalism not as abstract tolerance but as lived improvisation – balancing Islamic values with market survival to sustain a significant cultural and economic enclave. The findings challenge simplistic views of religious rigidity, highlighting how flexible concepts of honour (izzat) enable adaptation in gentrifying neighbourhoods. Amid the decline of curry houses, these insights inform policy debates about urban diversity and economic resilience in global cities where minority ethnic businesses anchor cultural economies.
Perspectives
Writing this article allowed me to piece together the ingenuity of Brick Lane's restaurateurs – some of whom I've known for years through research carried out in the early 2000s – whose stories of faith, family partnerships and hard-won compromises brought the abstract idea of pragmatic piety to life. It was a pleasure to draw on that early fieldwork and the later Brick Lane-Banglatown project (2018-2024), turning observations and fieldnotes into something that honours the tenacity of restaurateurs and their workforce amid the persistent squeeze of gentrification. I hope it sparks curiosity about how global cities really work, one curry house at a time.
Dr Seán Carey
University of Manchester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘They've got to make a living’: Alcohol, curry commerce and pragmatic piety on Brick Lane, Anthropology Today, February 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8322.70054.
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