The 'World's Hottest Curry' Made Me Hallucinate

The Cinnamon Club's "Bombay Burner"

Indian food snobs always moan about the quality of English curry. "Tikka masala doesn’t even exist in India!" they cry. And so what? Neither, judging by my recent trip there, do traffic laws – and nobody's getting preachy about that. Plus, the English curry night has now become an institution in its own right – a beery show of bravado as you battle your way up through increasing levels of spice until only the foolish are left, staring at a dish full of phaal and hoping someone else backs out before you do.

Like every sweeping generalisation I make, this romancing of Britain's bastardisation of Indian cuisine recently came back to bite me. I'd got in touch with the Cinnamon Club in central London because I wanted to try the "Bombay Burner" – their own creation and apparently the hottest curry in the world.

With the dish sitting in front of me, my eyes were streaming before I'd even picked up a fork.

Vivek Singh

I say it's "apparently" the hottest curry because it's near impossible to measure the overall heat of a composite cooked dish, as explained to me by Vivek Singh, executive chef of the Cinnamon restaurants and creator of the Bombay Burner.

The curry consists of lamb mince stuffed into 24 halves of the hottest scotch bonnets you can find outside of the Caribbean, and blended with a combination of other chillies, including habanero, jalapeño, bird’s eye, Thai green and the Dorset Naga, a sub-strain of the Bhut Jolokai and up there with the hottest in the world.

I could try to work out the overall level on the Scoville scale, but the bottom line is that this was a plate of fucking hot chillies, stuffed with even hotter chillies and slathered in chilli sauce. You'd be hard pushed to find something spicier outside a can of pepper spray.

The chefs coughed and spluttered after checking the smallest bite of the curry for seasoning, which wasn't a particularly promising sign for the wellbeing of my digestive tract.

Vivek cackled as I prepared my get-out clause – a semi-coherent spiel about how this wasn't Man v Food and I wasn't going to put myself through torture just for the sake of a burned mouth and internet kudos.

I had to sign a disclaimer stating that I understood the risks associated with eating the Bombay Burner and was doing so at my own volition. With that, my bed was made.

I didn't really have a game plan, so opted to handle the challenge with a short burst of speed eating, figuring I could knock back all of the stuffed chillies before the spice caught up with me.

I was wrong. After just two half chillies, I was already struggling; the heat was so intense that I could feel it in my hands and face as much as my mouth.

The chemical that gives chillies such a fierce heat is capsaicin, a substance so potent that – when used to make pepper spray – causes temporary blindness in protesters who've become a little too human rights-y for the police to handle with batons and shields alone.

Just as I was beginning to face up to the physical strain of my dinner, the more transcendental effects of the capsaicin began to take hold. Self-styled "chilli-heads" often describe a mildly euphoric endorphin rush brought on by substantial chilli ingestion. There was nothing euphoric about my experience; it felt more like I was K-holing in a house fire.

But, unwilling to throw in the towel, I picked up my fork and stab-chew-swallowed until the plate was clear.

Molten tears and glowing lips aside, it was a delicious curry. The general rule behind a dish this intense is to create something that still hits all the flavour marks you'd expect, otherwise why not just serve up a plate of Nagas and be done with it?

Unfortunately, the chefs weren't satisfied with my completion of the dish, so brought me out a plate of Nagas, which were stuffed with the same vicious blend of chillies that make up the Bombay Burner.

This second serving didn't bother with the courtesy of trying to provide any flavour marks – it just destroyed my taste buds and set fire to my tongue.

After two mouthfuls I threw in the towel, drained a couple of lassis and tried to focus on blander, happier times. Still, as one of around five of 400 people (according to Vivek) to finish the Bombay Burner, I didn't think I'd done badly.

A few hours later, that warm glow of pride gave way to something else entirely. What started as a slight rumble grew steadily more violent, and by the time I got home my stomach sounded and felt like a washing machine full of spanners.

With little else to go on in terms of medical aid, I turned to an age-old remedy for extinguishing spice, which – on reflection – may not have been the best decision. I don't know if you've ever drunk four pints of milk in an hour, but it doesn't exactly make for a settled stomach.

As is often the case with curry, the heat unfortunately remained intact throughout the entire digestion process. Later that evening, I relived all the fun of the afternoon, only this time – luckily – without any of the waiting staff there to witness my pain.

I really don't recommend you try the Bombay Burner. But you should definitely order it, then slope off and let your friends have a go.

@MitchSyrett