Mithas

The story behind this restaurant begins before the Second World War. In 1935, a young man from Jalandhar reached British shores. All he had were the clothes on his back. He didn’t speak a word of English, let alone read or write. But he dreamed of owning a restaurant. So he became a door-to-door salesman. Obviously. It took years of hard graft and penny pinching, but Khushi Mohammed finally opened his first restaurant in Edinburgh in 1947. Being next to the university, it was ideally placed to give all the homesick Indian students a wee taste of home. As the Indian community in Edinburgh grew, so did the restaurant’s popularity – and soon all sorts of the city’s residents were popping in for their dinner. It didn’t take long for Khushi to become one of the Southside’s more recognise faces. Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, the restaurant’s popularity grew beyond the Indian community – and regular customers soon included locals from all walks of life. Back then, the menu might have been simple by today’s standards, but the spice and flavour of the food made visiting the restaurant an exotic experience with a universal appeal. The great long benches of the original restaurants would hold students and streetsweepers, office workers and policemen, builders and businessmen – often all at the same time. Khushi died in 1977 and his wife then took over the business. Down the years it has moved premises several times but it always stayed true to Khushi Mohammed’s original vision of a restaurant offering top quality, affordable Indian food with friendly service to the people of Edinburgh. Sixty five years on, Khushi Mohammed’s sons now run the family business. On visits to London they had enjoyed Indian fine dining in restaurants like Benares, the Cinammon Club and Café Spice. They’d always wanted to bring that sort of imaginative and adventurous Indian cooking to their home city and from that ambition, Mithas was born.