For every foodie and Tamil film buff, Cine Suvai on Tamil Sangam Marg is the place to be. And if you are on a first visit, the interesting elements of Kollywood movies from the 1960s to 2022, will fill you up even though the menu has over 200 items drawn from cuisines as varied as Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, continental, Italian, American and Punjabi.
The setting of the 300-seater is inspired by the old Art Deco theatres. “It took us 15 months of hard work during the second wave of the pandemic to recreate Instagrammable cinema all around,” says Cine Suvai CEO, Vichitra Rajasingh. The restaurant frontage has billboards similar to movie posters and if currently it is Vijay’s Beast popping up, Kamal Haasan’s Vikram is next.
Inside is parked the famous taxi ‘Lakshmi’ from Rajnikanth’s Padikadhavan, a black-and-yellow old Fiat Padmini salvaged from the scrapyard and remodelled for four diners; a pink Ambassador from Sidhdharth’s Jil Jung Jug modified with two tables and a selfie-side; small casino poker tables with a sports bike hanging from the ceiling above to recreate Ajith’s Mangatha; a section inspired by Kamal Haasan’s disco of the Eighties with multicolour seats, disco balls and lights that look like vinyl records; and a selfie booth with an auto that recreates Dhanush’s Maari.
Iconic movie scenes in parks, rains and rural settings have been recreated in different sections. The piece de resistance is the 70-feet-long train coach, which, says Vichitra, was a logistical nightmare to install. An auctioned railway coach was transported to Madurai after cutting it into two pieces, because there was no trailer that long available. It was refurbished by welding the two pieces, insulating the roof and the walls, installing floor boards and panelling it into an air-conditioned dining space for 70.
The newly renovated Cine Suvai on Tamil Sangam Marg | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
The train ambience is complete with details such as the emergency chain, fans, mirrors, coach numbers and destination, the sleepers with luggage on upper steel shelves and monitors fitted to the windows playing footage of landscapes from a train journey. “The reason for getting a real train coach is because many iconic Tamil movies have been shot on trains. From Sivaji Ganesan’s Thillana Mohanambal to Madhavan’s Alaipayuthey and Surya’s Vaaranam Aayiram, the interior of the coach is full of Tamil cinema dialogues that have been rewritten to relate them to food,” explains Vichitra.
Cine Suvai offers Madurai its first taste of sushi | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
“The food is better than what you get on a real train,” jokes S Ramesh, who is here on his fourth visit since the restaurant’s re-launch two months ago.
Feasting on the multiple hues of the colourful Cine Suvai junction, designed as a huge railway platform, I take a table inside the train and order sushi, introduced for the first time to Madurai. Yet again, the focus shifts to the unmissable cinema detailing: the tissue box designed like a clap board and the bill box as cinema reel; waiters dressed like RajniKanth, Dhanush or Vadivel’s Nesamani, and the waitresses as Saroja Devi. Even the hand-wash areas resemble an actor’s vanity room with bulb-lined mirrors. Cine Suvai has created an impressive décor and menu that needs to be experienced
Open all days from noon to 11 pm.
