A FAMILY-RUN Tibetan restaurant that has been making waves since opening its first fixed-site in November has now been nominated for a prestigious national award.

Owners Yeshi Jampa and Julie Kleeman, launched Taste Tibet as a food stall in Gloucester Green back in 2014, but finally decided to open their own restaurant on Magdalen Road last winter.

After a series of successes, the street food restaurant and take away has been nominated as one of the three finalists in this year's BBC Food and Farming Award in the Best Street Food or Takeaway Category.

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This is a national competition that receives thousands of nominations each year.

Ms Kleeman said: “We are absolutely over the moon, and we have been told we had a huge number of nominations from people in the community, so we are completely blown away.

“We would like to celebrate with our customers and community at some point when it is safe to do so – we are truly grateful for everyone who tried to nominate us.”

The awards this year, however, were not just seeking businesses that serve brilliant food, but those who have gone the extra mile to help throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since the first lockdown, the owners and staff at Taste Tibet have been going out of their way to help others, delivering thousands of food packages to NHS workers over each lockdown.

At the beginning of the year, the popular Tibetan restaurant paired up with Oxford Mutual Aid, a grassroots community support group and action network that helps provide food packages to those in need, to deliver between 50 and 100 free food parcels each week.

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Ms Kleeman added: “This year the awards were asking people to think about how loads of businesses have helped people throughout this terrible year."

“We are really proud of our work helping Oxford’s NHS staff and vulnerable communities and consider this our greatest achievement in what was already a massive year for Taste Tibet.”

The East Oxford eatery is in competition with Griedy’s Wings & Strips, based in Manchester, and Juma Kitchen, which serves Iraqi food in Borough Market, London.

Saturday Kitchen’s Matt Tebbutt will visit Taste Tibet and make the final decision of which of the three restaurants will win the award.

The winner of the award will be announced at a ceremony hosted by Radio 4’s The Food Programme in London on October 13th.

The couple and their two young children are ‘extremely excited’ about what the competition has in store.