At Chennai’s 30-year-old Eden restaurant, nostalgia tastes like Madrasi Risotto

Celebrating three decades, the founders of Eden Vegetarian Restaurant explain why they have never changed their decor, core menu or recipe for roasted vegetable crepes

“Just a few days ago, a young NRI, who used to be a regular here through his school and college, dropped in for dinner. He was a bit emotional when he told us that our ambience and the taste of food is the same as he remembered,” says Aparna Venkatesh, one of the restaurant’s founders. “He brought his wife and children along after a few days. We often come across young men and women who drop in to relive their younger days, and it makes us happy to know that we have been part of good memories of many families,”

On October 6, 1992, Aparna Venkatesh, Venkatesh MB and Subadhra Raju, all graduates of Institute of Hotel Management, Taramani, and best friends, launched Eden Vegetarian Restaurant in Besant Nagar. Back then, it was probably the only place where they served continental vegetarian food in the city.

“It was the nascent stages of the IT era and that was when international travel picked up. There was increased awareness and interest in continental food and the culture of eating out also became popular,” says Venkatesh, adding “We put together a menu that catered to their interest and curiosity of the diners.” In the 90s employees from TIDEL Park frequented restaurant, but the mainstay were the families from the neighborhood and expatriates, living in the locality.

Those were the days when continental food was available mainly in luxury hotels, and Eden offered its own style of fusion continental, which went down well with the patrons. Says Subadhra: “Our version was mildly spiced up with some Indian spices and we excelled in fusion. For example, our risotto was made with basmati rice and had a slight Indian touch, so we named it Madrasi Risotto. It was so tough to get herbs and sourcing basil and mushrooms was hard. There have been times when we had added cilantro leaves along with basil and that was also widely appreciated by patrons..”

Venkatesh and Aparna got married a year after the launch. While Venkatesh was completely in charge of administration, Aparna and Subadhra focussed on recipe development, and began work on developing the menu for the catering section, a venture they started a few years later. At this time, Eden also became one of the earliest restaurants to offer home delivery.

For the first few years, all three founders worked as chefs through the day at different city restaurants. In the evenings, they worked at Eden, which functioned until 10 pm. “Funding was not easy in the 90s, especially for the food business. Three of us put in all our savings and hours of hard work to make it happen,” says Venkatesh. “At that time women chefs were a rarity. Aparna and I worked at the AVM Dasa, where we had to multitask and learn the nuances, and it was this exposure and experience that helped us to run Eden,” adds Subadhra.

We made everything from scratch, we did all the work and it was real hard work, but we were happy to see our satisfied customers repeatedly walking in for our food,” says Aparna. A few years later, they gave up their day jobs so they could focus on Eden.