‘Regional Indian food always considered ‘Ghar ki Murgi Dal Barabar’

[[{“value”:”

It’s been a little over two months since Dadar’s iconic seafood restaurant Chaitanya has opened in Thane, shifting their focus from a western suburb to a completely different neighbourhood. Interestingly, the region has seen many restaurants open since the start of 2026, and the regional Indian food restaurant is the latest addition to it. While many of them are cafes, seeing the restaurant that celebrates Malvani cuisine find its place there has been refreshing, but founder Surekha Walke says it was a long time coming because of locals.

She explains, “For many years, a lot of Thanekars have been coming to dine at Chaitanya in Dadar. It is also why many of them have been telling us to come to Thane and have even started looking for places so that we could set it up and told us about it over the years, and that’s why we decided to set it up there. The second reason has been that a lot of people from the Kokan region live there, and that is why we decided to expand to Thane.”

Introduction of tandoor to the classic menu

While the menu has all the classics, there is an interesting addition in the form of the tandoori menu, but that has come after observing the evolving dining habits of Mumbaikars, particularly their love to eat more than the regular fare. “Since we are in the food business, we decided to do something different. Our Malvani food has fry and ghee varieties, and people today like to eat starters before the main course, so we thought, why not start tandoori? Since people don’t want too much oil in their food, that was another reason. We use different kinds of masalas to marinate the seafood and chicken. In fact, this was first started in Nav Chaitanya in Andheri and worked very well, so we decided to continue it here.” Some of the signature dishes that people should try, she says, are the lasooni and malai marinated dishes.

Interestingly, this is one of the many changes that Walke has observed in the way that people enjoy Malvani food ever since the family opened their eatery in Mumbai in 1992. “When we started in 1992, there were only four or five dishes in the fish thali and chicken thali. Then we thought, why not add some dry dishes to the thali? So we decided to add thikla to our fish thali and xacuti to our chicken thali, but people don’t want to eat bones these days, so we made it boneless. We used to only make fried fish earlier, but then we started the tandoori. We also added starters to the thali, and people started liking this evolution.” Even though they have made all these changes, Walke says their preparations have also remained traditional simply because they want to give people a taste of Malvani food by retaining the flavour and that is why they will never change it. They have gone a step ahead and even started a line of instant masalas called ‘Mother of Malvan’ to help people enjoy the flavours of the region at home and also wanted to take the taste of Malvani food to more people.

They have come a long way over the last 30 years, not only as a food establishment in Mumbai but also as one of the flag bearers of Malvani cuisine in the city and, with that, the responsibility of educating more people about the region’s cuisine. Walke reminisces, “When we first came to Mumbai, we used to go to eat Malvani food in the city and realised that it wasn’t really Malvani food because it used to mostly be Goan or Mangalorean food that was being sold in the name of Malvani food. So that’s how we decided to start the restaurant.” 

Evolution of Malvani cuisine in Mumbai

With a taste for perfection, they didn’t go one but two steps ahead to retain the flavours. “In fact, even when we started cooking Malvani food here, it used to not give us the authentic taste, and that’s why we started transporting the water from the region to Mumbai. Many people used to ask us why the food isn’t spicy, and that’s when I started telling people more about Malvani food. I told them Malvani food isn’t spicy, but it is more colourful and is very balanced. There are traditional leafy vegetables that are made too. Many people even think that Solkadhi needs to be cold but needs to be drunk at room temperature. Many others also ask for it before eating, but it must be drunk after your meal. It is for digestion and should be had in a lesser quantity only. Today, I have seen people are much more informed about the cuisine than before,” she adds.

Being so close to home while serving delicious Malvani food, at a time when Mumbai boasts of some of the best restaurants serving world cuisine and now modern Indian food, Walke has seen a change. More Indians are now embracing regional food than before. “I believe regional Indian food has come a long way and is known to more people than before. We used to think ‘Ghar ki Murgi Dal Barabar’ and just that it is okay that the food is there. However, now we see so many foreigners come and eat and swipe the plate clean (Thali ekdum chakachak rehti hai) and eat our food with so much happiness.” This can be seen in the fact that she says the region’s solkadhi has also reached overseas and even appears on fine-dining menus today. “While there are some differences in the food due to caste-based preparations, we love our food from the Malvan region, and it has reached outside too and has come a long way since we started out,” she adds.

Common misconceptions about Malvani food

Even as more people are embracing regional food and enjoying Malvani cuisine, Walke has still seen many misconceptions exist about the cuisine over the years. She highlights, “Many times, vegetarians come and think Malvani cuisine is all about seafood, but then we inform them that there is a lot of good vegetarian food too, including kala vatana ussal and even sweets. Other people think there is a lot of oil used in the cuisine, but that is also a misconception because the dish already uses coconut, so we use oil to the bare minimum. Many others also think that we consume a lot of bony fish, but that is not the case too, because there are many fish that don’t and others where you can simply remove the bones from them. While we do tell many people about the solkadhi, there are still some people who think that solkadhi is a cold drink and want it served first.”

“}]]