Thattu
Thattu is an Indian street food concept featuring cuisine from the coastal state of Kerala. Founded by co-owners and couple Margaret Pak and Vinod Kalathil, Thattu launched officially in 2019 at Chicago’s Politan Row food hall. After getting married, the couple made regular trips to Vinod’s home state of Kerala where Margaret was inspired by the cuisine and learned its nuances through her mother-in-law.
After critical acclaim from the James Beard Foundation and Jean Banchet Awards, Thattu was forced to close its regular operations at Politan Row. Inspired by their cuisine and story, SAI reached out to Margaret and Vinod to learn more about Thattu, their aspirations and how to create a taste of Kerala in your own home.
What is the inspiration for Thattu?
Thattu is inspired by the unique cuisine of Kerala, the southwest Indian coastal state. As the birthplace of black pepper and cardamom, the cuisine of Kerala is known for aromatic spices as well as the ubiquitous use of coconut. “Thattu” literally translates to the word plate and is also part of a Tamil word “thattukada” which translates to street food shop. At Thattu, we bring a small sliver of the flavors of Kerala in an approachable way for our guests through our small and mighty menu.
Tell us more about the masala biscuits?
Savory, spicy, crumbly, sweet and salty - these biscuits are a literal flavor trip! Our masala biscuits are typically enjoyed with tea. Margaret first fell in love with this typical tea snack on her first visit to India in 2005. Since then, these have become an obsession over the years and subsequent visits to Calicut, Vinod’s hometown. A local institution - Delecta Bakery - was forthcoming and shared their industrial sized recipe. Over the course of many years and many iterations, Margaret tinkered with the recipe using spices and ingredients more readily available and first debuted these at her first popup in 2018.
Savory, spicy, crumbly, sweet and salty - these biscuits are a literal flavor trip!
How was the experience of being based in a food hall?
Starting off in a food hall opened us up a much wider audience than we could have expected. It was also a fantastic stepping stone where we were able to test out our concept with a very low initial cost and without having to worry about infrastructure and maintenance. As new business owners, it was great to have other vendors who had different levels of experience and we were constantly helping each other. On the flip side, the shared kitchen and long and inflexible hours did make it extremely challenging. However, we were able to adapt to the conditions without compromising our values.
What does Thattu bring to Chicago’s South Asian food scene?
Thattu brings an increased awareness of regional cuisine within the Indian subcontinent. Typically when people think of Indian cuisine, most think of butter chicken and samosas and there is much more. Our goal has been to educate our customers about the diversity of Indian cuisine and specifically showcase the unique and authentic flavors of Kerala.
In a very short time, Thattu went from concept to a critically acclaimed restaurant to the uncertainty of now, tell us more about the journey and how you are coping with it all?
It has really been a rollercoaster ride from the beginning. We were really inexperienced in running our own business, let alone a restaurant. So starting off in a food hall really helped with the infrastructure and initial publicity. However, we were really overwhelmed by the demand and support right from the start. It took us a couple of months to get things running smoothly. Over time, we learned to cope with changes in demand and built in a lot of efficiency in our processes. The amount of critical acclaim was really a big surprise and it has made us more conscious of what we can achieve when we put our heart into something. It did help us in overcoming some of the lull in demand of the winter months.
The closing due to the virus was immediately after the James Beard semifinalist announcement and it really left us really going from peak to literally nothing. In some ways we were lucky in that we had not taken any actions such as hiring more people to deal with the increased demand. Even before the news, we were planning on exiting the food hall and opening a place of our own as our contract was up. With today's uncertainty we are definitely rethinking on what the next steps are going to be.
Our goal has been to educate our customers about the diversity of Indian cuisine and specifically showcase the unique and authentic flavors of Kerala.
Even though none of us can be sure of what’s next, what are your hopes for Thattu in the near future?
We hope to provide a safe, comforting and warm experience for our customers. Whether this means more online content of recipes and videos and or take-out options in the future - we want to continue to bring Keralan cuisine to Chicago. Once things get back to normal, our hope is to be able to open up our own place that brings in the ambience of a no-frills laid-back Kerala restaurant.
How can people try your food while we’re sheltering in place?
We will be holding a second curbside takeout popup on Tuesday, May 12th out of Kimski. Also, try our recipes in the blog section of www.thattuchicago.com. We plan to add more recipes and possibly video over time. We are also interacting with our customers regularly on social media, sharing our home cooking and answering questions.
Chef Margaret was kind enough to share her signature egg curry recipe with us. Get the recipe and watch the video below.
INGREDIENTS
6 Boiled Eggs, Cut into vertical halves
2 Onions, Sliced
2 Tomato, Sliced
½” Ginger, Chopped
2 Garlic Cloves, Chopped
3 Green Chilies, Slit and seeds removed
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Red Chili powder (Paprika, Cayenne, etc.)
2 tsp Coriander powder
2 tsp Fennel Seeds
1 cup Coconut milk
1 sprig Curry leaves (optional)
Cilantro for garnish
Salt to taste
2 tbsp Oil
PREPARATION
Step I
Grind together turmeric, chili powder, coriander powder and fennel seeds to make the spice mix. You can make lots of this and store for future use.
Step II
Sauté ginger, garlic, green chilies and curry leaves in oil in a pan
Add onions and sauté until caramelized
Add spice mix from Step I and salt and sauté for 2 minutes
Add tomatoes and cook until mushy
Arrange the egg halves in the pan with yolks up
Pour the coconut milk, mix without turning the eggs and cook over low heat for a few minutes
Garnish with cilantro
Learn more about Thattu at thattuchicago.com and follow on Instagram and Facebook.
Photos: Matt Haas, courtesy of Thattu