Gopal's Corner opens its first site outside London
The Malaysian Tamil quick-service brand takes roti canai and mee goreng mamak to Birmingham's Bullring on 12 October, its seventh site overall.
Gopal's Corner opens its first restaurant outside London on 12 October, bringing Malaysian Tamil street food to Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre.
The quick-service brand will serve roti canai, mee goreng mamak and a spinach-and-cheese murtabak from a new unit in the Bullring, its seventh site and the first beyond the capital.
Gopal's Corner is the sister brand of Roti King, the chain Sugen Gopal founded in 2014 around a single flatbread recipe. Gopal's Corner itself launched in 2018, inside Market Halls' food hall at London Victoria.
Birmingham felt like the natural next step for us, bringing Malaysian Tamil cuisine to a new city.
A seventh site, a new city
Both brands have since expanded across the capital, with sites at Market Halls' Oxford Circus and Paddington locations. Roti King made the company's only previous move outside London, opening a site in Brighton. Birmingham is Gopal's Corner's turn.
"Opening our first site outside of London is a really exciting milestone for Gopal's Corner, and Birmingham felt like the natural next step for us," said founder Sugen Gopal. "We're looking forward to bringing the flavours of Malaysian Tamil cuisine to a new city, and contributing to the melting pot of cultures in Birmingham."
The move follows a familiar pattern for London's food hall-born brands: prove a format in the capital, then test it in a regional mall with reliable footfall. The Bullring, one of the UK's busiest shopping centres, fits that brief.
Roti canai as the draw
The Birmingham menu leans on the brand's signature flaky roti canai, torn and dipped into curry sauce, alongside mamak-style stir-fried noodles and the murtabak, a stuffed, pan-fried flatbread. It is quick-service pricing built around a dish that usually takes years of practice to get right.
Birmingham has drawn other Malaysian openings this year, though mostly inside London hotels rather than shopping centres. Gopal's Corner is betting that mamak-style cooking travels as well to a food court as it does to a market hall.
No further openings have been announced beyond Birmingham. For now, the brand is watching how its first regional site performs before deciding where to go next.
