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The owners of a longtime Short Pump-area Indian restaurant have branched into Chesterfield. 

Last month Jassi Singh and Charanjeet Ghotra opened Rutba Indian Kitchen at 13822 Village Place Drive in the Midlothian Village Square shopping center. 

Rutba is Singh and Ghotra’s second local restaurant, joining Anokha Unique Cuisine of India, which they opened near Short Pump Town Center in 2008. The duo also own two restaurants in Charlottesville, Milan Indian Restaurant and Kanak Indian Kitchen. 

Ghotra said Rutba’s menu is similar to Kanak’s with classics like butter chicken, samosas and grilled kebabs, along with Chukundari kofta, which is a vegetarian take on meatballs with beetroots, and the Paneer Bhatura, a type of bread that’s stuffed with Indian cheese and spices. 

“We have a lot of dishes that we had created (at Kanak) that are very popular there, and people here like them as well,” Ghotra said.

Entrees at Rutba range from around $17 to $25, and it also offers a variety of Indian beers and wines, as well as a full cocktail menu. 

Rutba restaurant debuted in mid-July and is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. 

Last year Singh and Ghotra purchased Rutba’s 3,000-square-foot Village Place Drive building, which was formerly a Wendy’s, for $1.2 million, according to county records. They converted the space from a fast-food joint to a sit-down restaurant with the help of Fultz & Singh Architects. 

Singh and Ghotra have been in the industry for decades, starting out in restaurants in New York and Virginia Beach in the 1990s. They’ve opened four restaurants over the course of over 20 years, first with Milan in Charlottesville in 2003, and prior to Rutba, their most recent opening was in early 2020 with Kanak.

Ghotra said he and Singh always make sure their restaurants are stable and successful before moving onto another. 

“If you can’t handle it properly, then there’s no point in opening (a restaurant) then closing it, right?” he said. 

Rutba and Midlothian Village Square are just a mile down the street from Winterfield Crossing, which just signed on Stella’s Grocery as its newest food tenant.  

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He cited the recent testing of six samples belonging to the Empire Group of Restaurants, which turned out to be unsafe due to the use of banned synthetic colouring.

“Despite repeated warnings, the restaurant group continued to use the unsafe colouring agent. Only after legal notices were sent did the colour go from red to yellow,” the health minister told reporters during his weekly media briefing.

There was no response from the Empire Group of Restaurants.

According to the minister, better quality food and drugs can become the norm only if people insist on quality goods.

“Yes, the government needs to do its part and tackle this legally, but people too should cultivate quality conscious as culture,” he said.

The minister also said the health department held a video conference on July 30 with cooking oil manufacturers to insist that the trans-fat level should not exceed 2 per cent.

“We told them that if it exceeds 2 per cent, strong action will be taken against them,” he added.

Dinesh Gundu Rao said the oil manufacturers were also urged to sell used cooking oil (UCO) to manufacturers like Pyrene Industries, which converts UCO into biodiesel.

According to 2024-25 data, 28,73,124 litres of UCO were used to manufacture biodiesel and soap, he said.

“We want this figure to increase substantially so that UCO does not go back into the market for cooking purposes,” he added.

Rao said the Karnataka government has merged the enforcement division of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) medicines under the AYUSH Department, as well as the existing AYUSH drug testing laboratory in Bengaluru, with Drug Control Division of the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department for better functioning of the Health Department.

According to him, the government’s proposed app to control drug safety is expected to be functional by the end of this month.

“With this app, we can immediately withdraw defective drugs, as we can track at distributor level. So, we can put an immediate stop to further sale of that drug,” said the minister.

He said, once the app is in force, they will expand its scope. “Next will be to take it to the pharmacy level. We want to onboard every pharmacy on the app,” he added.

At present, the recall procedure takes two days, he said, citing the recent recall of nearly 40 lakh drugs in two days.

“This too, we had made a breakthrough with the help of a software. Earlier, it used to take nearly 30 days to recall batches of failed drugs from the market,” he added.

The minister also said work is progressing at expected pace in bringing the private ambulances and mobile medical units under the ambit of Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act. “We will be coming out with an amendment soon,” he added.