“Decades ago, our cousin gang had the ritual of visiting Lalbagh every Sunday. An equally important ritual was to come to MTR restaurant for breakfast. If our parents could not spot us in Lalbagh, then they knew we would be in MTR. Their masala dose has remained my favourite through the years,” said Savitha Rajesh, an ardent fan of the famed restaurant, going down memory lane.
Home to a million memories, Mavalli Tiffin Room, or MTR as it is fondly called, is celebrating 100 years of service in 2024. The landmark building on Lalbagh Road at Mavalli has served lakhs of customers its iconic rava idlis, masala doses, badam halwa, and chandrahara, among other delicacies, since 1924.
The dream of three brothers
In the early 1900s, three brothers — Yagnanarayana Maiya, Ganappayya Maiya, and Parameshwara Maiya — who were farmers from a village called Parampalli in Udupi district, came to Bengaluru to find work to battle financial issues. While they all initially found work in Bengaluru, one of them had to go back to their home town. Eventually, Yagnanarayana Maiya was supported by his employer to start a restaurant and thus MTR came to being.
In the beginning, MTR was a small food joint on Lalbagh Fort Road which sold coffee, tea, and doses. Only in 1960, the joint was transformed into the restaurant that exists today.
Narasimha Shetty, a senior citizen, remembers the early years of the new restaurant. “I have been coming here for 60 years. Back then, we would rush to MTR before 7.30 a.m. as the sambar would get over after that,” he chuckled. He listed dumroot, idli sambar, khara bath, and badam halwa as his favourites at MTR.
In the 1970s, when the government announced the Emergency, MTR had to shut its doors for a while. But unwilling to let their staff bear the brunt of the closure and to provide them with an alternate employment opportunity, Yagnanarayana Maiya started a small store next door to sell masala powders and rava idli mix, which was named MTR Foods.
Classic with a twist
“The speciality of MTR was that they would take a normal dish and give it a twist,” said Hemamalini Maiya, managing partner of MTR.
She, along with Vikram Maiya, Aravind Maiya, and Priyadarshini Maiya are currently running the MTR restaurant chain, which has 12 restaurants in India and seven abroad.
Ms. Hemamalini Maiya credits her granduncle Yagnanarayana Maiya and long-time cook, Shivaram Bairy, who was taught by the former and has been with the restaurant for three generations of management, for the creation of MTR’s iconic recipes, including the rava idli and chandrahara.
She also vouched that the recipes at MTR have remained untouched and are followed to this day. “The only change is in the raw materials. Like back then, we would get buffalo milk which made the coffee taste different. Our ghee was also made from buffalo milk back then, but now, we get ghee made from cow’s milk,” she explained.
Employees delighted
Just like their recipes, the staff at MTR have also been around for a long time and a few are even second-generation employees. “My father served here for 40 years in the coffee department. I have been working here as a supplier for 36 years,” said Nagendra Adiga, a staff member. Similarly, Vasudeva Kumar has been serving coffee for 35 years now. “In the evenings, we serve about 500 coffees and in the mornings, we serve over a thousand coffees. I have spent my entire life here,” Mr. Kumar fondly said.
While Mr. Adiga believes that using ghee in all food items is what makes MTR special, Mr. Kumar said that the secret of serving a good cup of coffee lies in the smile of the supplier. Both of them said that they felt a sense of pride about MTR completing 100 years of service.
Innovation of iconic dishes
The rava idli and chandrahara are synonymous with MTR. A rice shortage during World War II led Yagnanarayana Maiya to innovate the now popular rava idly. Chandrahara, which is now only served on Sundays, was first named the French Sweet as it was a layered dessert. The name failed to garner the excitement that Maiya expected. Soon enough, a movie named Chandrahara, which was running in the cinema next door, brought the sweet its new name and the rest is history.
Celebrity sightings common at MTR
From Kannada film legends such as Dr. Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan to Bollywood superstars and politicians, celebrity sightings at MTR are common. “While filter coffee was his favourite here, Dr. Rajkumar also got his fix of rava idli whenever he visited here,” Hemamalini Maiya remembered.
With the overwhelming number of people who visit the restaurant every day (2,000 on weekdays and around 4,000 on weekends), celebrities also go unnoticed at MTR sometimes. “[Bollywood actor] Shashi Kapoor visited MTR a couple years before he died. He came and sat with the crowd, and nobody noticed or recognised him. Then somebody recognised him and called me over and he asked me if my name was really Hemamalini as he had acted with my namesake in films. He said that his memories of visiting MTR with his father brought him back to the restaurant.”
