Local Community Advertising
So you like Italian food and your partner prefers Indian.
Kelowna's newest restaurant has the answer.
It's Indian, it's Italian, and 'La Mantra' is open for business in a cool heritage building on the 200 block of Bernard.
"Indo, Italian," said owner Jag Sekhon, with a smile. Because there's more.
"We have a little bit of Chinese, we've got fish and chips, chicken fingers, with have a little bit of poutine, we have poke..." and he goes on.
And when KelownaNow stopped in, Sekhon served up a dish that would best be categorized as Indo-Chinese.
He has a bit of an eclectic background himself. He's Indian, by way of Australia and Okotoks, Alberta.
And since Sekhon has been in Kelowna he's been collecting restaurants.
Within a block of 'La Mantra', he has accumulated Pacific Poke, Smokes Poutinerie and Blenz Coffee.
He also owns a Little Caesars Pizza not far away.
It's a family business, and Jag's son Jas is equally enthusiastic about the different colliding cuisines.
He's certain that the Italian dishes will catch on, growing up, he saw people coming to the town's first-ever Italian restaurant for 25 years.
"That's a recipe that we don't change," said the younger Sekhon.
"No spin to it whatsoever. Exactly the way it should be and the way that we know people like it."
Jag's wife Raman has fallen in love with the location, which just happens to be the spot where Kelowna's original post office was located.
"This is a heritage building and we didn't touch anything," she said. "See the walls, see the floor."
In fact, some of the old glass that once adorned the front of the building in decades past are now part of the decor.
"This building is amazing," said Raman.
You'll find 'La Mantra' at 274 Bernard Ave.
Local Community Advertising