Meet the Chef Bringing Kerala’s Toddy Culture to New York

252 W 37th St, New York, NY 10018, United States. 

At this spot in Manhattan, New York, you’ll find yourself staring at a portal. Its glass and wood-panelled doors separate two contrastingly opposite regions — the bustling city of New York on the one side and the backwaters of Kerala on the other. 

Enter in. 

In the case of most portals, it might take a while to reach the other end — blame tricky contraptions — but not this one. In a matter of seconds, you’ll be teleported across 13 km to the enchanting villages of Kerala, specifically its toddy shops, which, aside from the local palm wine, serve menus burgeoning with flavour. 

The spread at chef Regi Mathew’s Chatti restaurant (the name ‘Chatti’ borrows from the traditional clay pots central to Kerala’s toddy shops and homes) draws inspiration from this toddy culture of Kerala. It isn’t easy recreating a tradition that has been a part of the state’s culinary fabric for hundreds of years, but our chef is adept at coaxing flavour out of the most unassuming ingredients. 

His love language with the spices and masalas of his homeland led him to start Chatti in New York — his way of carrying home with him to a foreign land. 

Serving slow-cooked and fresh magic 

Disclaimer: You’ll be tempted to try everything on the Chatti menu. 

The best part is, you absolutely can, without a trace of guilt.  

This is made possible by the ‘touchings’, flavorful small plates that weave a beautiful tale of Kerala’s bounty of seafood, meats, and native vegetables. These bite-sized meals — think prawn pouches steamed in banana leaves, spiced beef brisket studded with coconut chips, jackfruit cutlets coated in coconut crumbs, duck mappas (a duck curry simmered in coconut milk) — give you the leeway of feasting on a range of options, without limiting yourself to just a few large portion sizes.  

While the food and drink (toddy, a naturally sweet and lightly fermented, with low alcohol content) at the toddy shops that he would frequent during his college years in Kerala won his heart, chef Regi found himself fascinated by the community-centric experiences encouraged at these taverns. He began to see what a “great social equaliser” toddy culture was, how shared meals became a bridge for stories. 

Now, he is envisioning Chatti as a formula to project Kerala cuisine through the story of food and culture. 

Ever since its doors opened in March this year, the Manhattan restaurant has become something of a hero. Guests head here for an authentic Kerala experience — they recline on rattan (wicker) chairs, feast on Kerala’s most coveted dishes, all while being enveloped by decor that features fishing nets, snake boats, red-tiled homes, kathakali dancers, and kalaripayattu, Kerala’s ancient martial art form.

The creation of Chatti saw chef Regi flesh out the decor in a way that it would resemble his town’s traditional homes. 

Now, watching indigenous ideas and flavours finding favour in international palates makes him smile. 

Where flavour and richness convene in every dish 

If you thought the best conversations at Chatti are the ones that play out among the guests, you’re wrong. 

The curries, marinades and grills have a banter of their own. 

As your hands graze over the food, you’ll hear it. The pomfret grilled with gooseberry masala exchanges pleasantries with the pearl spot parcels (Kerala’s classic ‘Karimeen Pollichathu,’ wrapped in banana leaf and grilled); the seafood moilee soup (a soup simmered with ginger and turmeric in coconut milk), meanwhile, is quite the extrovert, making its presence felt on every table. Every dish has a role; every ingredient is alive with flavour. Think of it as tradition injected with an eclectic twist. 

The best part about Kerala cuisine, chef Regi points out, is that none of the dishes are overwhelmingly spicy. “Instead, the meals are characterised by an aromatic depth,” he says. 

Meanwhile, the secret of the menu’s success lies in how the curries’ robust flavours are tempered by the silkiness of the breads like vattayappam (soft steamed hoppers), puttu (delicate steamed rice cakes) and idiyappams (home-style string hoppers). 

And there’s nothing like a good cocktail to wash it down with. Choose between the Elephant Whisperer (featuring banana puree, coconut, white rum, and Prosecco), the Malayali Old Fashioned (with sees the coming together of bourbon, toasted coconut, jaggery bitters and cardamom bitters) and Ayyo Kaapi (a South Indian twist on the classic espresso martini, made with authentic filter coffee).

Finding his way back to the place he calls ‘home’

Tracing his primal relationship with food, chef Regi is reminded of his earliest memories in his home kitchen, where he’d lend his mother a hand, admiring how she turned ingredients into pure joy. This fondness evolved into a curiosity to know how mothers in Kerala summoned a culinary artistry that echoed in their recipes. 

So, before starting his award-winning Kappa Chakka Kandhari (now with branches in Bengaluru and Chennai) in 2018, chef Regi decided he wanted to sit down with the mothers of Kerala, and understand their kitchen secrets. 

The next three years saw him traverse 265 homes and 70 toddy shops across Kerala, testing over 800 recipes. He and his friends feasted on home-cooked food, pored their heads over generation-old recipes, and got a front row seat to how ingredients were wielded in specific ways. He began to see how ingredients coalesce to dictate the anatomy of the dish, its quality, and the emotion that will come through while eating it. 

This experience textured chef Regi’s understanding of Kerala cuisine. Kappa Chakka Kandhari went on to become a success. Today, Chatti finds common ground with it in wanting to spotlight the same authentic culture, but Chatti’s genius lies in celebrating hyperlocal ingredients and slow-cooking techniques. “This allows the spices to come together in a perfect blend. It creates a well-balanced dish.” 

So, what is Chef Regi’s metric for success? 

“When a guest, who has grown up in Kerala, comes to Chatti and feels that it resembles a toddy shop experience that they have had back home, that makes me happy,” he concludes. 

Edited by Vidya Gowri Venkatesh; All pictures courtesy Chef Regi Mathew

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