There are only two restaurants in Mumbai where I’m treated like minor royalty: Thakker Bhojnalay in Kalbadevi and Mani’s Lunch home in Matunga. Now that’s down to one.
The original Mani’s Lunch Home was opened by VS Mani Iyer, a Tamil Brahmin from Kerala, in 1937 near Ruia College in Matunga East. This is a tiny place which serves tiffin snacks through the day: in the morning you’ll find medu wada, upma, sheera and pongal, in the evening the menu changes and you’ll find a variety of dosas rasam wada and Mysore bonda. It’s not difficult to find Mani’s. Anyone in the area will guide you and you know you’ve reached when you find a cluster of people sitting on plastic stools and chairs on the pavement under the leafy shade of large trees delicately balancing their plates of dosas and idlis.
In 2002, KS Narayanaswamy, Mani Iyer’s oldest son, assisted by his two younger brothers, opened Mani’s Lunch Home on Telang Road, just down from Matunga flower market.
Fourteen years is not a long time in the life of the restaurant or of any institution in Mumbai. It’s barely a blip. Pot Pourri in Bandra opened way back in 1994, Indigo in Colaba in 1999. But it is a testament to the popularity and its cultural significance that the closure of Mani’s on July 1 is being compared to the loss of Samovar and Rhythm House, which were several decades older. Mani’s, like many of the other restaurants in the area, represented a slice of the city’s history.
Older practices
What made Mani’s so relevant was that even though it was relatively new, it still followed older restaurant practices. There was no reservation, or choosing your table. At lunch time, there was always a queue and you patiently stood in line till you were allotted a seat. When you were seated at a table for four, it was more than likely the other three people were complete strangers.
There was no question of bowing to trends or popular tastes when it came to the food. The family’s village is in Palakkad, close to the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, so the flavours were a bridge between the vegetarian cooking of Malayali Brahmins and the Tamil Brahmins. This was the only restaurant of its kind in Matunga (the others are all Kannadiga) and they were not going to change one step in the way they cooked. Of course, it never got the whole-hearted endorsement of many Tam Brams I know, but they conceded that it was the closest they could find to home food in the city.
The food was cheap, and refills of sambar and chutney were unlimited. In the morning and evening, a variety of tiffin snacks was available, but at lunch time you could only order the rice plate. You could choose either a regular rice plate or the Special Meal which was served with sweets or payasam. I was never offered a choice. I was always served the Special Meal with payasam and, because Narayanaswamy knew my fondness for it, unlimited servings of jangri.
Onam feast
The first time I met Narayanaswamy was at the restaurant awards I had organised as the editor of Savvy Cookbook. Mani’s Lunch Home was one of five contenders for the title of Best South Indian Restaurant in Mumbai and when they won, Narayanswamy was overjoyed. The restaurant was much loved and respected, but it had always been overlooked. A beaming Narayanswamy, in his trademark untucked, long-sleeved white shirt, collected his plaque from Vithal Kamat, the owner of Kamat Hotels. Narayanswamy was so pleased with a photograph of a full South Indian meal arranged on a banana leaf that I had styled for the magazine that he blew up the image and framed it prominently in the restaurant. Every time I visited he would apprise me of how many customers had taken a photograph of the photograph.
Mani’s was most famous for its sadya feast on Onam. On an average, they would serve lunch to at least 700 customers. Naturally, the restaurant could not cope with such volumes and they would hire a hall next door for the day. Two rooms at the restaurant were kept open for their special invitees and the sadya was always served on a banana leaf.
Preparation for the sadya would start the night before, but the food would be cooked only in the morning. The fresh coconut used abundantly in almost all the vegetable preparations would ferment if cooked too far ahead of time, explained Narayanaswamy. Cooking would start at 4.30 am and by 10 am everything would be ready. Doors would open at 10.30 am and they would wind up by 3.30 pm.
I’m not sure if they’ll have found a new place to operate from by the time Onam rolls around in September. I do know the hunt has already begun for a new place and I am sure that this is not the last we have heard of Mani’s.