Season liberally with adventure spice Cilantro’s owners crossed the globe to launch an eatery that charmed neighbours and challenges bounds of modern Indian cuisine By: Eva Wasney Posted: 7:00 PM CST Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023

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This article was published 22/02/2023 (954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s shortly after opening and the small dining room of Cilantro’s Modern Indian Cuisine is quickly filling up for the weekday lunch rush. It also happens to be Valentine’s Day.

The East Kildonan restaurant is covered in pink and red construction-paper hearts and guests are arriving two at a time. One customer orders butter chicken to go, explaining to the woman behind the counter that he has a bouquet of flowers in the car and is going to surprise his wife with lunch.

Since opening six years ago, Cilantro’s has become a neighbourhood joint fitting for casual meals and special occasions. It’s a dream achieved for owners Kapil Gusain and Ritesh Patel.

“This restaurant has a history,” Patel says of the Gateway Road eatery and former home of the White Rock Cafe. “You’d have people open the door and some of them would just leave because… it was something different for them.”

There were few Indian dining options in the area at the time and it took a concerted effort to win over a clientele that was used to eggs, toast and coffee.

“We would go out of our way to say, ‘Try this and see how you like it,’” Patel says, recalling an elderly customer who had never eaten curry before. “We got him to try the dish and he was here every week. So, we had a good transition, I would say.”

So good, in fact, that the friends and business partners have opened a second location on Portage Avenue with plans to open a Cilantro’s “in every corner” of Winnipeg.

Patel is the executive chef and Gusain takes care of the front-of-house operations as the restaurant manager. The pair met in college while studying hospitality in Mumbai (which the partners refer to as Bombay).

“You meet new people every day,” Gusain says of what piqued his interest in the industry. “And I like eating and trying different foods.”

They started daydreaming about opening their own restaurant in college and gained experience working in fine-dining restaurants at international hotels before diving “neck deep” into ownership. It was Gusain who broached the idea of moving to Canada.

“I wanted to try something else, move to a different city or country and see a new culture,” he says.

“And I guess he didn’t want to do it alone,” Patel adds with a laugh.

“I had to manage my risk 50/50, right?” Gusain jokes back.

They continued their hospitality studies in Toronto and moved to Winnipeg in 2012, where there were fewer barriers to obtaining permanent resident status. After several years of working in chains and fast-food joints, Patel and Gusain started building their own business plan. The goal was to open a restaurant that mixed fine with casual dining while highlighting their diverse culinary interests.

“We didn’t want to be known as an East Indian restaurant, we wanted to be known as a restaurant where you go and enjoy the food,” Patel says, adding that they chose the name Cilantro’s for its broad approachability. “Cilantro is also a herb that we use in basically every dish.”

The menu is inspired by Mumbai, a city of more than 21 million people, where regional cuisines co-mingle and street food is king. There are Indian standards — such as vindaloos, curries and dals — as well as a wide range of dishes that play with tradition. There’s masala chat poutines, samosa sandwiches and “curritos,” burrito-style naan wraps filled with rice and deconstructed curry ingredients. The Portage location also has a dedicated street food counter for quick service items.

“The way we have designed our menu is across the country,” Patel says. “We don’t want to make it a typical Indian restaurant, that’s why we always keep on doing different things.”

While some guests have challenged the authenticity of certain dishes, the co-owners argue that the approach is representative of the country writ large and its diverse street food scene.

“In India, there’s different cultures everywhere,” Gusain says. “Every state has a different language, a different culture.”

“There’s nothing authentic about (street food),” Patel adds. “I could be selling the same dish as somebody two blocks down the road and it might be completely different, it is that person’s take on the dish.”

With two restaurants offering cuisine from the whole of India, the owners are looking forward to building a brand that covers the whole of Winnipeg in the future.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney