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Paradise Indian Cuisine Credit: Courtesy

Today at 5 p.m., Paradise Indian Cuisine (1116 Chester Ave.) opens its doors downtown. Formerly home to IC Fitness, a 24-hour gym, the space has been reshaped into a stylish full-service restaurant. This latest location joins other Paradise properties in Mayfield, Parma and Aurora.

“It looks great,” says owner Rahul Gonuguntla. “To me, it looks better than Aurora.”

Since opening his first Paradise in 2017, Gonuguntla has cultivated a dedicated following for his Indian cuisine. (Scene’s dining review from 2023.)

“We are technically South Indian – I come from a place called Hyderabad, which is very famous for its biryani – but we pretty much offer a combination of everything,” he says.

This latest location is a 50-seat restaurant serving lunch and dinner seven days a week. Gonuguntla says that the restaurant will serve food late into the night, until 1 a.m. every day (carry-out and delivery only after a certain hour). The owner, who operated a satellite shop in the Carnegie Food Hub for two years, was surprised by all the late-night demand.

“Our busiest time at the downtown Food Hub is between 10 and 1 a.m.,” he explains.

The owner recently shuttered that ghost kitchen in anticipation of the new restaurant.

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For 25 years, Douglas Trattner has worked as a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. His work as co-author on Michael Symon's cookbooks have earned him four New York Times Best-Selling Author honors, while his longstanding role as Scene dining editor has garnered awards of its own.