At Thattu in Chicago, chef Margaret Pak and Vinod Kalathil have found a home where there are no tips or service charges. Food critic louisachu has more.
The Avondale neighborhood restaurant shares their interpretation of Kerala, the state on the southwestern-most coast of India.“It’s beautiful, lush and filled with coconut trees,” said Pak, chef and co-owner with Kalathil, the general manager. “I fell in love with Vinod and the cuisine about 20 years ago.”Advertisement
It’s minimalist in form, but maximalist in spice, though not numbing with heat. That holds true throughout the thoughtfully concise menu. At dinner, the black chickpeas return as a kadala curry with a deeply roasted coconut gravy. It’s been with Thattu since day one, Pak said. You can choose an appam or jeera rice on the side. For me, there was no choice but the appam, which I first fell in love with at the former
“That type of coffee is not even from Kerala,” he added. “It’s from our neighboring state of Tamil Nadu that’s very famous for their coffee.” The Kerala fried chicken bites, dinnertime nuggets of the lunchtime bird, don’t fare quite as well, losing the complexity of other components, despite a nice yogurt sauce. A Malabar chicken biriyani, bone-in chicken layered with basmati rice and baked, was surprisingly undersalted as a whole, in defiance of the tiny but electrifying lime pickle side.
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