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After nearly two decades in downtown London, one of the city’s top-rated Indian restaurants is moving to the city’s west end.
Massey’s, a fine-dining South Asian restaurant, will reopen at 2130 Kains Rd. to attract customers back to its dine-in space, said Anisha Massey, who runs the restaurant with her husband, chef Patson Massey.
The restaurant had operated at 174 King St. for 19 years, offering dine in or take-out, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers dropped, and everything changed, Anisha Massey said.
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“We were having some challenges at the (King Street) location with people breaking into the restaurant,” she said. “I think safety was the No. 1 thing that prevented people from coming there (to the restaurant).”
The couple tried to keep the restaurant’s vicinity clean, offered more parking for customers and even put bars on its windows.
“But who wants to dine in a place with bars on the windows?” Massey said. “We didn’t feel safe ourselves, so how can we make the customer feel safe?”
Reopening at the end of November in a smaller but cozy space, customers will be able to park in front of the restaurant and not have to worry about people breaking into their cars, she said.
Starting again from scratch is challenging, Massey said, but creating new customers from Komoka and Kilworth is something she and her husband are looking for to, she said.
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Though hot-selling items, such as butter and tandoori chicken, will remain on the menu, new ones will be introduced.
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“People will have something new to come back to, so it’s not the same old menu sitting there,” Massey said.
The new location will keep its chef-oriented, up-scale style, relying on Patson Massey’s experience in the kitchen and his technique of blending spices and creating special recipes.
“This (location) will be more than just bricks and mortar,” Anisha Massey said. “We’re going to work more on (food) presentation this time.”
Massey’s recipe for staying in business, amid a boom of new Indian restaurants in London, has been the consistency of the food and how customers are treated, she said.
“London is a growing community, and it is attracting a lot of people from the GTA,” Massey said. “Many South Asians are moving here for good homes, good schools and opportunity to do their own business.”
The growth of the student population also has created demand for Indian restaurants that serve dishes from different regions in the country.
“So, even though there are new Indian restaurants, it could be a completely different … just catering toward that particular sector of Indian students,” Massey said.
One of the trademarks of Massey’s is they cook everything in house, from scratch.
“I can’t explain how excited we are to have this space in our hands so we can start cooking and then start serving customers,” Massey said. “We just want this place to be like, you know, one of those hidden gems of the city.”
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