‘A restaurant that serves nothing but ‘authentic Maharashtrian food & products creating ‘memories and nostalgia

LIFESTYLE

The idea was always there to create a unique restaurant that was of a known genre but still completely different from what people consider it.

While the study and the research of the Maharashtrian cuisine had already begun in 2016 the year 2018, gave birth to the whole idea of starting a brand and entity that would give Maharashtrian cuisine its rightful place.

The idea or the seed of this brain child came from a Grade-A eatery and bar, which introduced a lot of cuisines within India on its menu along with other international cuisine.

The question that arose and took us by storm was- Doesn’t Maharashtrian cuisine have no place in an eatery that offers not only Mughlai, Bohri, South Indian but also Gujarati food? Does it not have standing within Mumbai or within Maharashtra?

Then why were all these eateries that serve Maharashtrian veg and non-veg food or even Thalis went full on four or five days a week?

And so began, the journey of a 90s kid to try and demand respect for the food and the cuisine that Mumbai and Maharashtra thrived for- Authentic Maharashtrian food. A journey to create a restaurant that serves nothing but only Maharashtrian food and products that didn’t have just the native authentic flavours but also memories and nostalgia attached to it.

The research and development was time consuming as it was supposed to be a project that would receive immediate response and love by everyone.

While still on the position of a VP of a limited company, Abhishek still thought giving more study, more time and research would just strengthen the basics or the base of the brand.

However, the time was cut short by the Covid pandemic; and a 10year plan was about to be a five year plan. Without any option left it was time to put the brand to test.5

We started as a delivery kitchen in 2020. We wouldn’t call it a cloud kitchen as it wasn’t like any other cloud kitchen that came out of a tin shed somewhere deep inside the narrow lanes of Mumbai; usually how most of your A grade brands operate.

This spot was a six 650 ft.² fully functional, multi cuisine stainless steel kitchen ready to show off on a busy street. It was right on the signal that went off every 90 seconds with a big eliminated board for people to see. The Maratha kitchen had opened its first delivery kitchen on a busy Goregaon Mulund Link Road with a perfect location for delivery and takeaway that would also allow people to see how their food was being prepared while waiting for it to be picked up. The decision was to keep it organic.

And to our surprise, it took us only 90 days to get to the delivery numbers that we assumed would take us 999 days. And so began the search for a restaurant space.

All of this was doing of a wife, who believed that her husband could do wonders in his own business as she saw him doing, wonders for others over all these years. Being a Jain Gujrati, Meghna was born with the blood of a businessman running through her veins.

After two successful ventures of her own, she was ready step in with her husband Mr. Abhishek like a real partner would and that she did.

Started off as a 40 cover small size restaurant, The Marathi kitchen is now a 90+ cover giant  that needs more space if it wants to accommodate all its visitors with least waiting time.

The Maratha kitchen in three years of its existence has received a huge response from guests visiting 3 to 4 times a week to ordering delivery 365 days in a year.

This restaurant has a lot of unique dishes to offer. For any other layman, this would be just another Malvani restaurant from hundreds of others that are running within the city. Each doing almost the same thing done by the other. However, The Maratha kitchen did something opposite.

This restaurant serves every cuisine possible from the state apart from the Malvani food. So basically food from Vidarbha, touches to Solapur, Nashik, Nagpur, Pune, Kolhapur, Raigard, etc. 

Their seafood is great, but there is something else about their mutton dishes. The crowd here comes to relish on their mutton dishes, thalis and other mutton preparations with their freshly made piping hot jowari and Bajri Bhakris .

Their must tries include-tambda pandhra rassa from Kolhapur, their mutton Alani bhaat from Pune their Prawn Tikhle from Alibaug, the kala masala from Nashik, Saoji from Vidarbha and much more.

Their restaurant looks like a dining hall of a native Maharashtra house setting. It goes perfectly with their food as all the food feels very much home cooked.

The Maratha Kitchen run by this couple Meghna and Abhishek is one of the most authentic restaurants within the city.

If you happen to come here, do not miss out on their Maratha mutton Thali ,Kala chicken Thali , Agri prawns Tawa fry and their most favourite Alani Bhaat .

Courtesy : In Conversation with the Restaurateur-duo ‘Meghna & Abhishek, ‘Owners at ‘THE MARATHA KITCHEN at Goregaon East, Mumbai.