Turn the handle
Roots, memory, discovery and reinvention, served at one table in Jayanagar. Traditionally modern, entirely vegetarian.One lamp is on. Carry its flame to the big lanterns and light the room.
Rooted in the flavours and memories of India, we look outward, borrowing ideas and techniques from kitchens around the world. A familiar flavour can find a new form. A global technique can meet an Indian ingredient. Tradition can travel. We call it traditionally modern, and every plate is vegetarian.
Roots
Before the world, there was a kitchen in Karnataka. Ghee on the griddle, curry leaf in the oil, avarekalu in season. Every dish here starts from that kitchen, even the ones that end up far away.
Memory
Birthday dinners, Sunday outings, the first restaurant menu we could read on our own. Butter masala, chilli paneer, a basket of garlic bread. We cook them the way we remember them, only better than we remember.
Discovery
Travel changes what you crave. Shiitake in a dumpling, gochujang on charred corn, truffle in an arancino. The world's kitchens, cooked with the same care as our own, and every one of them vegetarian.
Reinvention
A familiar flavour in a new form. Filter coffee becomes tiramisu. Rasmalai becomes cheesecake. Papdi chaat rolls itself into a cannoli. This is where the four states finally share a plate.
Everyone at the table orders from a different state. The table still agrees.
Traditionally modern, entirely vegetarian. Vegan and Jain dishes are marked on every page of the menu.
Palms, paddy and banana leaf, cut by hand into plaster and lit from the side by a single lamp. Move across it and the shadows move with you.
Every lantern wears the same printed border: a leopard asleep on a branch, a peacock, a hornbill, cranes heading home. The print is toile, a French form, redrawn here with an Indian forest. That is reinvention, hanging over your table.
One floor, eleven zones, 159 seats. Keep scrolling and the plan carries you from the front door to the last booth, switching the lights on in each room as you arrive.
You will be asked to wait here, and you will not mind. A wall of red travertine, a cane lantern the size of a small moon, and a sofa you are going to be called away from too soon.
A lattice of timber frames, three ceramic lamps stacked like beads, and the first line you will read on our walls: The Art of Everyday Dining. That is the whole brief.
The longest piece of furniture in the building. Zero-proof drinks shaken behind green marble, under the words Modern Plates. Timeless Flavours.
In the middle of the room, where another restaurant would have put four more tables, there is a lotus pond. Water runs from a stone spout. The lanterns hang directly above it and everything else is arranged around the sound.
Long tables for the family that orders one of everything, from every state. A coffered timber ceiling keeps the room quiet enough to hear your grandmother disagree with the rasam.
Along the glass, the floor turns to brick and the trees come indoors. Jayanagar's canopy does the rest. Ask for this side at four in the afternoon, when the light goes gold.
Three booths under a fifteen-metre backlit mural that tells where we come from in silhouette: hills, palms, a boat, a row of coffee filters. Sit here if you came to talk.
Where we come from: the southern kitchen, ghee first.
What we grew up with: the family-restaurant favourites, made properly.
What we found beyond our own kitchen: dumplings, sushi, the wok and the pasta pot.
What we make when they meet: a familiar flavour in a new form.
Lunch and dinner, every day, in Jayanagar. Tell us when you are coming and where you would like to sit, and we will confirm on WhatsApp.