CULVER CITY, Calif. — If you’re familiar with Indian cuisine, chances are you’ve had chicken tikka masala – the famed dish made with chunks of roasted, marinated chicken served in a tomato and cream curry sauce. At the Bombay Frankie Company, it’s just wrapped in flatbread and served like a burrito, or “frankie,” as it’s known in Mumbai.
“We wanted to bring Indian food here where it was more approachable,” said Priyanka Mac, the restaurant's co-owner with her brother Hiram Mac. “When you take a bite of a frankie, you get the texture, the flavor, the spice, the sweetness, the saltiness all in one bite.”
Opened Thursday at the Westfield Mall in Culver City, the large, airy space on the mall’s exterior serves traditional Indian with a fresh, California twist. Think naan baked on the spot in a traditional tandoor oven, along with saag paneer, potato samosas, and chana masala made with locally sourced ingredients, served with fresh chickpea spread, chutneys, and mango lassi, many of the dishes crafted from family recipes.
For the past few years, the Bombay Frankie Company operated out of a Chevron station in West L.A. that was owned by the Macs’ father, an entrepreneur with a portfolio of Chevron, 76, and Shell stations. The siblings had been running various quick-serve restaurants out of the locations their dad owned and thought, “maybe this could work, this unorthodox pairing of being a gas station serving essentially really high-class Indian food,” said Hiram Mac.
So the two partnered with an Indian chef who was already offering frankies as a sleeper item on his restaurant menu and went into business together as the Bombay Frankie Company.
A popular Indian street food made from anything that can be stuffed inside a flatbread, frankies originated in North India, which is where the Macs’ parents were born before individually immigrating to London, getting married, and honeymooning in Los Angeles, where the sunshine and palm trees inspired them to relocate once again in 1980.
Hiram and Priyanka were both raised in Los Angeles, where their Indian heritage was kept alive in the kitchen.
“Growing up, food was everything in our house,” Priyanka said. “Everything was always surrounded by food and the dinner table. One night we’re having dinner, and we’re already talking about dinner for the next night.”
Both parents were “really well culinarily versed,” Hiram added. “They would both make the same dish, but the taste was vastly different because of the familial spin they would put on it. Their mom or their dad or their ancestry had a particular way of making a certain dish.”
Their father has since retired from his gas station business. Now he works for his kids, as executive chef for the Bombay Frankie Company, creating signature dishes like salmon curry — a new item for the Westfield Mall location.
Otherwise, the menu will be almost exactly the same as it was at the Santa Monica Blvd. Chevron station where the Bombay Frankie Company got its start.
Their decision to move into a formal restaurant space was inspired by Westfield reaching out and offering them the location for “a great deal,” Hiram said.
“The whole situation of being in a gas station with limited parking and people fearing, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I want to eat at a gas station,’ well, now we’re in a proper brick and mortar with tons of parking,” Priyanka added.
Tucked between Macy’s and Nordstrom Rack, the new restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. for delivery, takeout, and dining on its outdoor patio.