Friends cooking up dishes from around the world after opening Burton Latimer restaurant

Dishes from Asia and Europe are on the menu after a group of six friends opened a multi-cuisine restaurant in Burton Latimer.

Papaya welcomed its first customers on Saturday (October 7) after taking on the High Street unit which was formerly curry house Mango.

It’s owned by Sandeep Raj Pandala, Sreejith Gopinath, Vaisak Raj Pandala, Saibu Thomas, Jimmy K Jose and Prabeesh Sadasivan, who are all from south India and live in the Kettering area.

But Prabeesh said they didn’t want to just offer up dishes from their homeland – with their menu featuring classics such as chicken tikka masala as well as Mongolian chicken, beef stir fry, Caesar salad and spaghetti carbonara.

He said: "If you come as a group of friends to the restaurant there will be something for everyone.

"It’s not just Indian, there’s Chinese, Italian and Thai.”

The group of friends, one of which is a chef, initially thought about getting a food truck and starting a business from there but said they couldn’t have it in the town centre.

When they saw the unit was available they jumped at the chance and have made a ‘substantial’ investment in the business, which has created three jobs so far.

Prabeesh, who works for a pharmaceutical company and used to manage a bed and breakfast, said: "We found out about this place and the rest is history. We had to do quite a lot of work on refurbishing.

"Everything has gone really well so far and we have had a good response. People have been happy and enjoying our food.”