South Indian restaurants in Delhi dare to go beyond traditional tiffin fare

When you’re a product of two vastly different cultures, language and food are tricky to negotiate. For instance, what was considered tiffin — traditionally, a snack or breakfast item — at my Tamilian maternal aunt’s house constituted a full meal for my Punjabi paternal grandmother. 

Despite the yawning gap between the cultures, South Indian food — of a certain description — is a staple for most North Indians. All “multi-cuisine” restaurants feature at least the masala dosa on their menu. But, of course, there’s a whole palette of distinct flavours from the five Southern states — Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — and the capital is finally waking up and smelling the assortment of spices. Finding authentic Malabar porotta and coconut chicken curry in the city is no longer bizarre wishfulness nor particularly difficult to find. 

Idiyappam and egg curry | Photos: istock

Mahabelly in Saket offers Kerala dishes without tinkering with the flavours too much. Thomas Fenn and his college friend, Zachariah Jacob, started this restaurant in 2015 and not just because they were missing food from home. “South Indian food has often been seen through its lowest common denominator. But we realised that people did appreciate regional cuisine, too. There just weren't enough options,” says Fenn. 

Mahabelly was one of the early leaders of this small but significant food movement. Today, Carnatic Café offers true-blue Karnataka dosas; Juggernaut Café does semi-experimental, semi-traditional Tamil vegetarian cuisine; and Thalaivar dishes up pan-South Indian fare, ranging from Mangalorean delicacies (Karnataka) to fish and prawn curries (Kerala) and Coimbatore curry (Tamil Nadu). Amma’s Haus, a delivery-only outlet in South Delhi, has on offer Kerala stew and yellow mango curry, among other Andhra and Kerala staples.

A Kerala staple now available at South Indian restaurants in Delhi

This burst of flavours is a function of both hospitality and distinct palette. For instance, while Udupi restaurants have been popular for decades in Delhi, few offer the fluffy Karnataka variant of the dosa with a thick layer of the mildly spicy but abundantly flavoured podi. Carnatic Café’s Malleshwaram 18th Cross Dosa is a tribute to the iconic street in Bengaluru and will transport you to the simple joys of breaking into an MTR dosa. Bisi bele bath and wangi bath are other traditional rice dishes that were seldom seen on the Delhi food scene.

At Juggernaut Café in Kailash Colony, the walls have delightful artwork, some in the style of Thanjavur paintings. The food though, for purists at least, may be less than spectacular. But its appeal lies in its pleasant hospitality and funky thenga burfi (coconut bars) boxes — probably keeping an increasingly millennial audience in mind. Their anar dosa seems like an unnecessary innovation, but the chutneys are delicious and fresh.

Chicken Chettinad has a distinct spice palette

Tucked away in Adchini, Chateau de Pondicherry explores a relatively undiscovered colonial influence from South India. Positioned somewhere between fine dining and café, this is the only place in the city that offers Franco-Tamil cuisine. There's coconut rasam here, but also French onion soup; and the small plates section of the menu lists both kothu paratha (bread and curry) and cream cheese with olives and figs. 

The Karnataka variant of a dosa is usually fluffier with a thick layer of podi

From milder tones of Karnataka to the bolder ones of Chettinad and Andhra, there’s a variety of flavours to sample in the city like never before. Thalaivar in Hauz Khas, for instance, has nuanced flavours for different regions, including successfully differentiating between Malabar and Chettinad biryanis. While it does have some generic items such as pepper chicken on its menu, there are ample new flavours and dishes such as the spicy kori gassi (Mangalorean chicken curry with tomato and coconut) to make one sit up and take notice. That broad-stroke moniker, “Madrasi”, just won’t cut it anymore.