NOTHING beats a good, hot curry on a winter’s day, says Deepak-Raj Gupta, Australia India Business Council ACT President and creator of the World Curry Festival.

Now in its second year, the World Curry Festival returns to City Walk over the weekend of July 8-10.

Last year’s festival attracted 25,000 people to City Walk, despite being postponed a week and losing some of its stallholders due to poor weather. It included a range of cuisines from Indian through to Ethiopian served up in street-style dishes cooked up by local community groups and commercial restaurants and cafes.

Gupta says the idea behind the World Curry Festival started in 2010, however only got off the ground last year with the help of In The City Canberra and the ACT Government.

He says he saw potential in holding a multicultural event to get people into the city at winter time.

“I thought: ‘What to do in winter time?’,” he says. “And nothing beats a good, hot curry on a winter’s day.

“My idea was to always have different types of cuisines in a street food style.”

He said they were overwhelmed by the response.

“We were thinking about 5000-6000 people would attend – I was completely prepared to take all the blame if we didn’t get the numbers,” he says.

This isn’t the first time Gupta has developed big outdoor events having been instrumental in Canberra’s renditions of the Diwali “Festival of Lights” and the Holi Colour Festival.

Gupta, who came to Australia 30 years ago, has an extensive background in hospitality. He started off as a waiter, while studying at university, and was soon thrust into the kitchen where he became a curry chef.

“It’s how my love for food really grew,” he says.

He now considers cooking a hobby and never follows a recipe – his signature dishes are a goat curry and paneer masala.

“The key to the perfect curry is add simple spices to it,” Gupta says. “The more simple, the more flavour comes out … you’ve got to try to keep the balance of flavours.”

This year’s festival will include about 25 stalls from India, Thailand, Laos and Ethiopia as well as traditional sweets, beer and curried Gozleme.

Gupta says there will also be a fashion parade and stage entertainment including Bollywood dancing.

However, he says it’s the chilli-eating competition, where the winner is named Canberra’s Hottest Citizen and gets free curry the entire festival, that will be the biggest entertainment draw card.

He says last year the competitors had already eaten 1kg of chillis by round six before they had to call it a draw.

“They were eating it like sweets,” he says. “I am surprised that they can eat chilli like that.

“This year we’ve already had people registered for the competition.”

He says his mind is always ticking over for the next big idea in outdoor events for Canberra.

His next big plan, he says, is for a night market that offers hawker-style stalls sometime in spring.

The festival will be held alongside Canberra’s Winter Festival, right next to the open-air ice rink, real snow toboggan and giant inflatable slide.

The World Curry Festival, Garema Place, Civic, July 8, 5pm-8pm; July 9, 11am-8pm and July 10, 11am-6pm.