It’s 9 on a Sunday morning, and the world outside bustles with activity. Inside the nearly 70-year-old Ratna Café, though, there’s a zen-like calm. The elegant sikku kolam drawn in front of the nearly-3,000-sq-ft hotel on Triplicane High Road is a precursor to an establishment that still hums to a yesteryear tune while staying contemporary.
The only sounds that emerge are that of orders being relayed to the kitchen, food being placed on the table, and content diners sharing a laugh or two. A group of men has descended on the hotel after a weekend volleyball match. Coming here is akin to a ritual; some have been frequenting the place for more than 40 years. The one thing that draws them: the sambar served with idli and other breakfast dishes. The same nostalgia triggers the visit of an elderly gentleman and his reluctant grandson. “I don’t want to eat here,” the boy says. The indulgent grandfather coaxes him saying “ idlisuper-a irukkum ” (the idli will be super). Soon enough, the child is all smiles. Ratna Café serves about 2,400 plates of idli every day, and anywhere between 500 and 700 litres of sambar .
Lalit Jain, 50, is at a table with Rajesh Bajaj and their friends. He’s been coming here ever since two idlis cost 15 paise! Suresh Katariya, 56, has been making the trip to the restaurant for four decades now. “Many things have changed, but the taste of idli-sambar, vada and rosemilk has been a pleasant constant over the years,” he says. Add to that list the jalebis made on weekends and served fresh off the frying pan, and the fragrant coffee that owner Lokesh Gupta is terribly proud of.
Freshness is key
Among the many reasons for that unchanged flavour is V Raman, the cook in charge of idlis , who has been with the group for 40 years. He heads to work at 2 am and works till 7 am, takes a break and returns for the evening shift from 1 pm to 6 pm. He cooked on firewood-fed stoves till 2002, before moving on to steam-fuelled ones. One reason for the unchanged flavour, he says, is because there is no compromise on the quality of ingredients. “We still roast the spices every morning and grind them fresh. The sambar is simmered for about four hours. The idli batter follows a secret recipe and the idlis are always served straight from the steamer.” Says A Joseph, operations head of the café that’s been around since 1948: “We know people come here for the sambar . People serve themselves anywhere between 300 and 400 ml of sambar for a plate of two idlis ; other hotels serve about 100 ml. We can’t afford to take our sambar lightly.”
Long journey
Which is why the dal comes from Indore. In fact, Lokesh, an architect who runs the café with guidance from his father Rajendra Gupta, says that 90% of the ingredients are sourced from places away from Chennai. Gupta grew up in a boarding school in Kodaikanal, and was oblivious to the hoary tradition of the café. “But, yes, when I returned to Chennai and people realised I was from the Ratna Café family, they would tell me stories of their visits to the hotel.”
And, Gupta pieced together the place the café holds in people’s lives through these stories. “Someone would tell me they came here with their grandfather, another would point to a corner table and say he brought his wife there when they were newly-weds ... And, while these are lovely to hear, the pressure to live up to their expectations is immense.”
Home-grown expertise
Gupta never really “grew up” with the taste of the iconic sambar . “My reference point for the sambar is my father, and my six-year-old cousin Khush. He can identify our sambar just by smell,” he laughs.
Another important link to the food is customers. “I know the familiar faces and make it a point to get feedback. And, when a diner leaves even a quarter portion behind on the plate, someone from our team rushes to ask why.”
To ensure quality, the family samples the food from the hotel every day. But, despite all the popularity, Gupta says there’s an issue: “People rarely look beyond the idli . We make other things well too, you know?” he smiles. And then, you’re reminded of its flaky parotta and kurma , crisp gheedosas , podi -drenched idlis , aromatic tamarind and sambar rice, and Bengali sweets. But, try telling that to diners who sometimes pour the sambar even on khichdi and chapati . For them, the sambar is the superstar; the others are merely accompaniments.
- Sometime soon, Lokesh plans to start a chain of cafés serving honest-to-goodness limited-menu food. “Something that focusses just on the basics. We have to play to our strengths.” And, yes, try out a range of dishes cooked using cold-pressed groundnut oil.
In this weekly column we peep into the histories of iconic restaurants.
