Niloo Persian Kitchen and Grill have officially announced that they will soon be expanding their operation into Esquimalt.
The restaurant’s original location is in Saanich’s Royal Oak Shopping Centre at 4440 West Saanich Road, where Co-owners Aylar Ebrahimi, Arash Sichani and Iman Ronaghi have been serving Persian cuisine to the community since December 2024.
Since opening, they have become well-known among Victoria’s Persian community, and far beyond through serving not only their culture’s comfort food, but also some unique takes on North American dishes.
The new space they will be expanding into is located at 624 Admirals Road, the former home of Lee’s Famous Chicken.
According to Ronaghi, the team at Niloo has been looking to expand right from the get-go.
“From the very beginning, the warm support of the community inspired us to grow,” he told Victoria Buzz.
“We received wonderful Google reviews, Niloo was named Best Middle Eastern Restaurant of 2025 by YAM Magazine, and the media and community response has been incredible. All of this encouraged us to move toward opening a second location.”
Niloo chose Esquimalt because they hoped to root themselves in another of Greater Victoria’s core communities, noting that when they first viewed the space they found, it felt perfect.
The new spot needed a bit of work in order to provide a similar feel to Niloo’s original location, but that will only take a short time with renovations.
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As far as the food goes, Ronaghi says that all their fan-favourites will be available at the new spot, including their kebabs and shawarma, but they also wanted to add something fresh and new.
Because Lee’s Fried Chicken was perfectly established as a fried chicken shop, Niloo will be doing their own, unique version of fried chicken out of this satellite location.
“We want our customers to feel the experience of a family run local restaurant, a place where food is made with heart, the ingredients are fresh, flavours are unique, portions are generous, and service is fast,” said Ronaghi.
“Above all, we want people to feel cared for whenever they visit a Niloo Restaurant.”
As of this publication, Niloo hopes to have their Esquimalt location up-and-running by Christmas.
