Bow Valley Restaurateur Expands Saffron Brand Beyond Banff

A longtime Banff restaurant is introducing Bow Valley diners to a broader range of Indian street food and regional cuisine after opening a second location in Canmore.

Restaurateur Pradeep Rana said Saffron Canmore is part of plans to grow the Saffron brand beyond its original Banff location.

The restaurant officially opened in January and marks Rana’s second Bow Valley location. He said the decision to expand into Canmore was driven by the town’s rapid growth and strong local demand.

“Canmore is expanding more now,” Rana said in an interview with Bow Valley Insider. “There’s a lot more of a boom in Canmore than Banff.”

Rana said he has spent more than two decades working in restaurants in India, the United States, and Abu Dhabi before eventually opening his own restaurant in Banff in 2021.

“I always wished to have my own restaurant and now that I have the restaurants, I want to expand it,” he said.

While the original Saffron restaurant in Banff focuses more heavily on traditional curry dishes, Rana said the new Canmore concept was intentionally designed around biryani and chaat.

“The menu will be a little bit different,” he said. “Banff has more curry than this one. In Canmore we did more street food and biryani.”

Alongside more familiar North Indian dishes, the restaurant emphasizes dum biryani, a traditional slow-cooked rice dish layered with meat and spices, as well as chaat, a category of Indian street snacks known for bold flavours combining tanginess, smokiness and heat.

Rana said one of the goals behind the restaurant was to introduce customers to Indian dishes beyond staples like butter chicken.

“I think they mostly know only the butter chicken, korma, and vindaloo,” he said.

He pointed to one fusion-style curry blending Thai and Indian flavours as an example of the kind of experimentation customers in the Bow Valley have increasingly embraced.

“People are really liking it,” he said.

Rana said response to the Canmore opening has been strong, particularly among existing customers who previously travelled to Banff to dine at Saffron.

“There were a lot of customers in Banff coming from Canmore,” he said. “Now it’s open in Canmore, so they’re liking it. It’s more convenient for them.”

Several dishes have quickly emerged as popular items on the menu, including chicken biryani, tandoori lamb chops and lamb shank.

“The tandoori lamb chops and chicken biryani are selling very fast,” Rana said.

Beyond the food itself, Rana said the expansion also reflects his long personal connection to the community.

“I have been here for the last 12 or 13 years,” he said.

Rana said the support he received after opening his first restaurant in Banff in 2021 played a major role in motivating him to continue expanding locally.

“It means a lot to me because I started my first restaurant in Bow Valley,” he said. “I really appreciate that community. The town has always helped me.”

Rana said additional locations are being explored, including a possible opening in Lake Louise and a potential expansion into Calgary later this year.