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Openingಬನಶಂಕರಿ/Banashankari, Bengaluru

Shri Aradhyam

All of South India. One roof. Endless flavours.

Five regions. One South India.

South India is not one cuisine. It is a coastline, a delta, a plateau and a hill range, each of which settled on a different fat, a different souring agent and a different idea of how much heat a plate should carry. Those decisions are what the words Udupi, Thanjavur, Guntur and Kerala actually mean on a menu.

Shri Aradhyam cooks each of them as itself. Nothing here is averaged into a single house style, because the differences are the point.

Region 1 of 5

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರುBengaluru

The city's own taste

  • Benne dosaButter on the griddle before and after the batter.
  • Bisi bele bathRice, toor dal and vegetables in one pot, finished with ghee.
  • Filter coffeeDecoction drawn slowly, met with hot milk, pulled between two tumblers.

Bengaluru has a palate of its own, and it is not the palate of anywhere else in the south. It likes its dosa soft in the middle and lacquered at the edge, it likes butter on the griddle rather than oil, and it will forgive a great many things before it forgives a thin, under-brewed coffee.

The city's benne dosa is the clearest case. Butter goes on the griddle before the batter does and again after, so the crust fries rather than toasts and the underside comes up the colour of dark honey. It is served with a potato palya and a coconut chutney that is ground fine and kept white — not the coarse, chilli-flecked chutney of the coast.

Bisi bele bath belongs to the same table. Rice, toor dal and vegetables cooked into one pot with a masala that carries cinnamon, clove and dry copra, finished with ghee and a handful of fried cashew. It is not a khichdi and it is not a pulao; it is its own dish, and Karnataka is precise about it.

On the boardBenne dosa · Bisi bele bath · Filter coffee

Region 2 of 5

ಉಡುಪಿ ಮತ್ತು ಮೈಸೂರುUdupi and Mysuru

The temple kitchen's restraint

  • Udupi mealsRice at the centre, and the sequence of small vessels around it.
  • Mavinkayi chithranaRaw mango grated into tempered rice, peanut and curry leaf.
  • Coconut chutneyGround fine, kept white, tempered with mustard and curry leaf.

Udupi cooking came out of a temple kitchen, and it still behaves like one. It is vegetarian by definition rather than by choice, it leans on coconut and jaggery rather than on chilli, and it treats restraint as a technique rather than as an absence. A great Udupi sambar is sweet, sour and hot in that order, and none of the three is allowed to shout.

A meals plate from this tradition is a sequence, not a spread. Rice at the centre, and around it a palya, a kootu, a sambar, a rasam, a majjige huli and a payasa — each eaten with the rice in turn rather than all at once. The order is the recipe.

Mysuru sits half a day's road away and cooks a little richer. Mavinkayi chithrana — raw mango grated into tempered rice with turmeric, peanut and curry leaf — is the dish that carries the difference: sharper, brighter, and unmistakably from a season rather than from a menu.

On the boardUdupi meals · Mavinkayi chithrana

Region 3 of 5

மதுரை முதல் தஞ்சாவூர்Madurai to Thanjavur

Sesame oil, pepper and tamarind

  • Ghee pongalRice and moong dal, black pepper, cumin, ginger and cashew.
  • Chennai style dosaThinner and crisper, made to be eaten with sambar.
  • Tomato riceCoimbatore's, sour and tempered rather than sweet.

Travel east into Tamil Nadu and the fat changes. Sesame oil replaces coconut, and with it the whole register of the food shifts — nuttier, heavier, and more willing to carry heat. Black pepper does work here that chilli does elsewhere, and tamarind runs underneath almost everything as a sour spine.

Thanjavur is delta country, and delta country means rice and means ghee. Ghee pongal is the dish that proves it: raw rice and moong dal cooked soft together, then finished with ghee, whole black pepper, cumin, ginger and cashew. It is temple food, festival food and breakfast, and the same recipe serves all three.

The Chennai style dosa is the other half of this tradition — thinner than Bengaluru's, crisper, more evenly browned, and made to be eaten with sambar rather than in spite of it. Two cities, one batter, and two entirely different ideas of what a dosa is for.

On the boardChennai dosa · Ghee pongal · Tomato rice

Region 4 of 5

ఆంధ్ర మరియు తెలంగాణAndhra and Telangana

Nothing hidden, nothing softened

  • PesarattuGreen gram ground that morning. No rice, no fermentation.
  • Guntur pesarattuThe same crepe with the Guntur chilli left in.
  • GonguraSorrel leaf — sour in a way tamarind is not.

Andhra food does not hedge. The Guntur chilli that defines it is grown a few hours from the coast and used without apology, and the region's cooking is built to carry it — sour, salty and hot all at full strength, with rice as the only thing standing between you and it.

Pesarattu is the region's great breakfast. Whole green gram, soaked and ground the same morning with green chilli, ginger and cumin, then spread thin on the griddle. It is not a dosa with the batter changed: there is no rice in it and no fermentation, so it tastes green and fresh in a way a dosa never does. Guntur pesarattu takes the same crepe and puts the chilli back in.

Gongura — sorrel leaf — is the other marker. It is sour in a way tamarind is not: leafier, sharper, almost metallic, and once you have eaten it properly you can find it blindfolded. Telangana cooks it drier and hotter than the coast does, and both are correct.

On the boardPesarattu · Guntur pesarattu · Gongura

Region 5 of 5

കേരളംKerala

Two pressings of coconut milk

  • AppamSoft in the centre, lace-thin at the rim.
  • PuttuRice flour and coconut steamed in a cylinder. No oil.
  • Coconut milkFirst pressing at the end, second at the start.

Kerala cooks the quietest food in the south, and the most technical. Coconut is not an ingredient here so much as a method: the first pressing of the grated flesh is thick and goes in at the end, the second is thin and goes in at the start, and a cook who confuses the two has made a different dish.

Appam is fermented rice batter with coconut milk in it, cooked in a curved pan so the centre stays soft and spongy while the rim goes lace-thin and crisp. Puttu is the opposite discipline — rice flour and grated coconut steamed in a cylinder, no oil anywhere near it, eaten with kadala or with banana and jaggery.

It is the tradition that most rewards patience and the one that travels least well, which is precisely why it is worth carrying carefully. Kerala is the next of the five to arrive at Shri Aradhyam.

On the boardAppam · Puttu

Every recipe has a place it belongs to.

All five are on one board, under one roof, at Banashankari.

See the menuFind the Banashankari outlet