Chef Gautam Krishankutty’s upcoming pop-up spotlights his childhood favourites of mutta roast and mutton biryani

Chef Gautam Krishankutty refreshes his memory of home with this pop-up featuring childhood favourites such as chemmeen ulli theeyal, mutta roast, and more

The last few years have seen the rise of home cooks championing micro-cuisines, and chefs have taken cue and introduced pop-ups, regional food festivals, and more. Taking cue from this trend, city-based Tijouri — a restaurant dedicated to pop-ups — is all set to host a lunch pop-up by Chef Gautam Krishankutty, who earlier helmed popular Cafe Thulp, and The Smoke Company.

While Gautam is known for his South East Asian offerings and experiments with grilled and smoked meat, this pop-up focusses on his flavours from home. Titled The Malabar Feast, the menu, he says, is drawn from his “memory, nostalgia, and the flavours of childhood travels in Kannur, Kerala”.

“Over the past few years, I realised that my connection to my own cuisine of the Malabar coast has been sorely lacking. Since then, I’ve been researching, learning, and making the food of my origins. It almost came about from a sense of shame that I didn’t know enough about the cuisine. This is an effort to correct that,” says Gautam. 

Diners can expect dishes such as the trio of chamanthis, neypathal with Leela’s chicken curry, velappam with chemmeen ulli theeyal, Malabar parotta with mutta roast, Devisadanam mutton biryani, and porrichi nendra pazham for dessert.

“When I started thinking about the menu, I decided to create a set of five courses: each one a meal by itself. Each of these courses represent the myriad influences on Malabar food, from the Arabic Moppila touches to the toddy tapper Thiyya roots that I come from. Instead of just doing a whole sadhya, I focussed on meals that I looked forward to growing up.”  

The menu features five such dishes, “They are taken from my childhood experiences, my travels to Kerala over the years, and recipes passed down to my mother by her ancestors. These are living breathing records of my ancestry,” he says, adding that the chemmeen ulli theeyal is the closest to his heart.

“It’s my favourite mostly because it’s something you don’t see too often on menus, and it represents Kerala to me. It also uses all the spices and produce Kerala is famous for.”