Fancy a plateful of chow mein? How about crispy masala dosas? Or, maybe, kuboos and shawarma is more to your taste. If not, you can simply hop across the road for burgers and milkshake, or double back for neychoru and Ammachi’s chicken curry, porotta and pepper chicken, biriyani... If desserts are your thing there’s always ice-cream, creamy cakes and cupcakes. For all that and more head to where the city goes for some chow these days – Kuravankonam, the city’s new mecca for food of the world.
From a laidback, upper crust neighbourhood just a few years ago, Kuravankonam has undergone a culinary transformation. It’s become the hottest dining destination in the city, usurping Palayam, with its variety of speciality restaurants, cafes, bakeries and takeaways dishing up delectable treats. Chinese, Arabic, North Indian, South Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Kuttanadan, Malabari, American diner food…you name it, it’s to be found at the junction or on its expansive approach roads.
Amina Musaliar was one of the first to realise the locality’s potential. She set up Supreme Bakers, just off the junction, in 2009, and quickly expanded operations to All Spice, a multi-cuisine restaurant, and later, Oriental Spice, a Chinese restaurant, on different floors of the same building. “When we started Kuravankonam didn’t look like what it does now and we struggled to find customers. For a long while, the road remained dug up for construction and passage through it was restricted but we always knew there was potential. Then, suddenly, it became an important thoroughfare and business started to flourish,” recalls Amina.
So “enamoured” with the location is Amina that she’s opening up a third restaurant, Supreme’s Upper Crust, ‘an artisanal French patisserie and cafe,’ in an adjacent building at the end of the month. Many other restaurants are under construction along the road.
Abraham Chaly of Café Mojo, which specialises in South East Asian cuisine, feels that the relationship between Kuravankonam and customers has developed into a symbiotic one.
“As more and more restaurants popped up, we started getting more customers. The variety of cuisines on offer is a big draw for them. If they don’t get seating in one restaurant or not satisfied with it, they can just walk over to another,” he says. He opened Café Mojo in 2011.
“In the first year we too struggled to find customers but nowadays docket around 60 orders on a daily basis, excluding takeaway parcels,” he adds.
The location has many advantages, feel the restaurateurs. “One of the best things about Kuravankonam is that it’s easily accessible to many of the major residential suburbs in the city – Kowdiar-Ambalamukku and beyond, Nanthancode, and those on the Pattom-Kesavadasapuram-Medical College side too. Initially, we used to get only customers from the locality but as the area grew in stature, we started getting people from all over the city too,” says Amina. Arjun R. Nair, one of the four youngsters who run Truffles Bistro, adds that the location gives “visibility” to the restaurants.
“Nowadays, it’s a commuter route, especially for the Technopark crowd, who are among the city’s biggest foodies and spenders. Just being in this location is enough to draw the crowds. In fact, that’s exactly what we were looking for when we decided to open Truffles here. We didn’t have too much to spend on marketing and from the word go it’s been word of the mouth publicity that has got us this far,” explains Arjun. Truffles, a popular burger, steak and shake joint, celebrated its first anniversary recently.
“It’s come to a point that if a fellow restaurateur in Kuravankonam gives an advertisement, it’s as good as doing it for all of us! That’s how much the location has grown in importance. Customers, particularly classy ones who know their food and are willing to experiment, will always re-visit the location to try out different food. There’s competition aplenty but it’s a healthy one, where we all get to share a slice of the pie, so to speak,” adds Abraham.
Plentiful parking is another factor that brings in the customers. While many restaurants do not have dedicated parking bays it’s not too much of a problem to find parking along the roads near the junction – unless you happen to be in front of Supreme in the evening. “Generally, after 7 p.m. or so things quieten down a bit and there’s plenty of parking to be had, maybe not right in front of the restaurants but within walking distance,” says Arjun.
For Shanavas A.H. and his wife, Nabila, plentiful parking was one of the things that sealed the deal for setting up their joint, O’ Roti, in Kuravankonam. Their restaurant-cum-takeaway has been up and running for just over a month and specialises in homemade ethnic and continental treats. “We were set on a property somewhere in the vicinity because it’s a residential neighbourhood with a lot of houses and apartments and that means a lot of walk-in customers for our takeaways,” says Shanavas.
The restaurateurs say that business is busiest on Friday evenings and all throughout the weekend. “When we started, we expected youth to be our main customers, given that we serve diner food. But it’s the family crowd that’s proved to be the stars. We get a lot of repeat customers, sometimes several times a month,” says Arjun.
On that note, Kuravankonam has no magic formula for success. Like elsewhere in the city, restaurants here too are subject to many permutations and combinations – quality of food, choice, quantity, cleanliness and the likes that count in the popularity stakes.
“There are several incidental factors too. People don’t turn up to eat if there is rain, if there is a cricket match, if it’s a hartal, if it’s a holiday… On the evening before a hartal or a holiday, though, it’s usually packed to the rafters. On our part, all we can really do is serve quality, tasty food,” says Abraham.
WHAT’S HOT
Supreme Bakers
All Spice
Oriental Spice
Sree Aryaas
Cafe Mojo
O’Roti
Al Noor Kitchen
Truffles
Skei ice-creams
Dejavu
Ambrosia
Bread Factory
Golden Fork
Al Baik
Lamiya
Food City
