Twelve years of cooking over fire

From one hearth in Alwarpet to five kitchens across the south — and why we never switched to gas.

The founder

Revathi

Revathi learned to cook in her grandmother’s Thanjavur kitchen, where everything — rasam, poriyal, the Sunday mutton — was made over a wood-fired aduppu. She spent ten years in hotel kitchens in Mumbai and London, ran the pass at two of them, and came back to Chennai in 2013 wanting to cook the way she had first learned.

She still works the Alwarpet hearth three nights a week.

“Gas cooks food. Fire changes it. The smoke, the char, the way coconut oil behaves over embers — you can’t get that from a burner.”

Revathi

Philosophy

How we cook

The fire sets the pace

Every kitchen is built around a wood or charcoal hearth. Some dishes take six hours; we plan the day around them rather than the other way round.

Buy close, buy daily

Seafood is bought each morning at the nearest harbour. Vegetables come from growers within a few hours’ drive of each branch.

Regional, not generic

We don’t cook “South Indian”. We cook Chettinad, Malabar, Kodava, Konkan and Deccan food, and we try to get each one right.

Share everything

Our menus are written for the table. Order a few things each and pass them round.

Whole and ground South Indian spices with curry leaves on a dark surface

Ingredients

What comes through the back door

Kalpasi and marathi mokku from a spice merchant in Karaikudi. Kudampuli from a family in Kottayam. Byadgi chilli straight from the auction yard. Rice from four farms, each one chosen for a particular dish.

We list our main suppliers on every menu and change them when we find better.

Cooking approach

Clay, wood and patience

Most of what we cook happens over wood: curries simmered in clay pots on a traditional stove, the fire fed with tamarind wood and coconut husk, rice and biryani sealed and left to cook slowly above the coals. It’s slower, and it’s less predictable, and that’s the point.

See the menu