For a city that is famed for its multicultural cuisine offerings, Indian restaurants in Manhattan tend to fall into three predictable camps: high-end takes on north Indian staples (Gupshup, Dhamaka, Bungalow), street-food nostalgia à la Adda or Rowdy Rooster, and neighbourhood staples such as the many comfort-food stalwarts that dot Murray Hill. But chef Regi Mathew’s newest offering, Chatti, lands in midtown Manhattan with a totally different agenda.
In New York, south Indian food seemed to finally receive its comeuppance when buzzy Semma opened its doors in Soho and quickly received its first Michelin star in 2022. It felt notable that the city’s only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant was one that showcased coastal south Indian cuisine, marking a departure from the stereotypical curry-house context within which Americans so far had experienced Indian food. But Chatti isn’t interested in the haute cuisine of Semma or the dosa-and-idli homestyle fare of Manhattan’s takeaway favourites. Instead, it occupies a space that has been curiously missing from the city’s Indian dining landscape: a hyper-local, authentic yet unfussy restaurant that is unafraid to put its regional micro-cuisine front and centre.
For those in the know, a toddy shop probably brings to mind a charming but unvarnished local watering hole, hopefully nestled amid lush and picturesque Kerala wilds. Inside, toddy tipplers are served a bevy of intensely spiced small plates (called touchings), offered between rounds of its namesake drink. The simplicity that defines toddy shops can be traced back to their origins as communal, egalitarian gathering spaces that first emerged in response to the needs of local labourers. Like any good bar, toddy shops tapped into the fact that robustly spiced food and alcoholic beverages are perfectly matched, dishing out signature plates such as meen pollichathu, mutton fry, and mussels roast. So naturally, the menu tends to revolve around slow-cooked meats, spicy seafood, and earthy tapioca mash, all garnished with a generous sprinkle of unselfconscious charm.
Chatti—named after the Malayalam word for the traditional earthen pots typical in Kerala cookery—takes a more polished approach than its muse, imagining a more carefully considered version of this world. And the New York space reflects this philosophy with wainscoted walls, ambient lighting, and tables set with earthenware that pay homage to tradition without veering into pastiche. On a cold Thursday night in February, the restaurant is full—and that includes the high-top seating at the sleek wrap-around bar that stretches inward from the entrance, its patrons filling the space with the kind of buzzy energy that is both a trademark of toddy shops and the soundtrack to most successful New York City restaurants.
Chef Regi Mathew is no stranger to successful restaurants, as evidenced by his celebrated maiden venture, Kappa Chakka Kandhari, which has had blockbuster success in its Chennai and Bengaluru locations, earning him multiple awards and catapulting his name to the domestic culinary spotlight. “I’m proud of my culture, and I want to present it to the global market,” says the chef who is a Kerala native, and cites his toddy shop inspiration as being a means by which to showcase the state’s many micro-cuisines in a cohesive way. “The touchings are what define a good toddy shop,” says Mathew, who sought a sense of balance when crafting the menu at Chatti, and focused on dispelling the notion that all Indian food is spicy.
For those not in the know, Chatti takes pains to ensure that its customers are well-educated on how to navigate its sprawling menu—each place setting comes with a printed menu card offering visuals of each of its ‘touchings’, and the larger main-course menu lists suggested pairings. Seafood takes pride of place on it, but if there is one dish that captures Chatti’s toddy shop ambitions, it’s the mutton fry, named Malabar Mutton on the menu. Tender, dry-fried, handsomely seasoned with black pepper and curry leaves, the dish lands somewhere between a bar snack and full-fledged main but stands out as the best ambassador for toddy shop cuisine amongst its peers on the menu. The touchings range from $12 to $17, with the mains coming in at the $20 to $48 range, making it comparable, price-wise, to other New York Indian hotspots such as Semma.
