Our story
How Kayalvaram started
Kayalvaram began in 2011 as a six-table breakfast room run by Leela and her son Arun, serving the appam and mutton stew Leela had made for family weddings for thirty years.
Word spread among ferry commuters and the shopkeepers on Calvathy Road. Lunch meals followed, then dinner, and the backyard became a dining room under the mango tree.
The recipes have not changed much. We still grind our masalas in the morning, cook fish curry in a clay chatti and close for a short break on Sunday afternoons so the kitchen team can eat together.
What we hold on to
Cooked in the morning
Masalas are ground and coconut is scraped every morning. Nothing is reheated from yesterday.
Fish from the harbour
We buy at Thoppumpady before 7 am. If the catch is poor, the fish dishes come off the board.
Fair to the kitchen
Our cooks get a weekly day off and a share of the service charge, and most have been with us for years.
Come for breakfast, stay for lunch
Our menu changes with the fish that comes in at the Thoppumpady harbour each morning and with what is in season at Ernakulam market. Coconut is ground fresh, curry leaves come from the backyard, and the rice is Palakkadan matta.