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New South Indian meal delivery offering more variety to Kelowna residents

Women in Business - Deepa Pillay
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Deepa Pillay and her husband launched Not Just Curries in the fall of 2022. (Kenny Tai photo)

Bringing a taste of home to B.C., Deepa Pillay and her husband Rahul launched Not Just Curries in September to bring authentic South Indian cuisine to Kelowna.

Pillay says she’s lived in a few B.C. communities and has always found Indian restaurants offer only a small selection of dishes from the northern part of the country.

“They tend to all sell dishes from only certain parts of India and it’s mostly Punjab… But India is such a multicultural place and it’s so rich in heritage.”

Pillay says a large portion of Indian isn’t represented in local restaurants and people have no idea what they’re missing out on.

The name, Not Just Curries, sparked from that realization.

“When we first moved to Canada we noticed that most people thought Indian food is just curry and it made us so sad, because there’s so many other amazing dishes in Indian cuisine that are not curry based.”

Pillay runs the business side of things while her husband is the chef behind the venture.

It’s not your typical meal delivery service, however.

Orders are placed online a minimum of 48 hours before scheduled delivery.

Customers can choose from a variety of available meals and days, with January’s menu include ghee rice, chitranna, and hyderabadi dum biryani.

“On the day of we use a commercial kitchen to prepare the meal and deliver it to the customer.”

Pillay says they currently operate Tuesday through Thursday.

“One of the biryani we make is an original recipe of my husband’s grandmother original recipe. That’s the whole reason we have it on the menu, sort of an ode to his grandmother. That’s definitely one of the most popular dishes on the menu.

Pillays says they try to expand the menu each month with at least one new dish.

The new food business is a big change from what the couple was doing previously.

Pillay moved to Canada in 2017 to attend school and has a background in business and marketing.

Her husband Rahul had been in the financial field, working in banks.

With her expertise in marketing and his love to cook, Rahul quit his job and Not Just Curries was born.

“For me this is a second full-time job. I have what I call my day job as well. I work in real estate marketing. I work at the real estate marketing and sales agency as a marketing manager.”

Find out more about the business or place an order by visiting notjustcurries.ca.