A friend slid into my Instagram DMs one afternoon with a message that instantly caught my attention. “Thought of you today. Met someone who opened the first Kerala restobar in Paris. I was telling them about PinkLungi, and of course, they already knew of it! Would you mind if I put you in touch?” That “someone” turned out to be Grishma Satpathy, one of the founders of Kallu & Co., which is Paris’s first Kerala restobar.
From the very first conversation, we hit it off effortlessly, and by the end of it, I was convinced that Kallu & Co. is a space that deserves its own place on the Paris map. The restobar opened in Paris this summer as the city’s first Kerala restobar. It is a compact, retro-soaked space where authentic Kerala food and fusion drinks are served.
If you ask Grishma Satpathy how an Odia woman ended up running Paris’s only Kerala restobar, she’ll probably laugh and gesture at the brightly colored Malayalam movie posters lining the walls of Kallu & Co.. She fell in love with Kerala’s food and culture through her Malayali friend of ten years, Alex Jerry from Chalakudy. Together with Ashik Roy from Kanyakumari, they built a restobar that is as much about identity as it is about Kerala food; one that tells Paris there is more to Indian cuisine than butter chicken and cheese naan.
Walk into Kallu & Co. and you will not find the same-old Maharaja murals or the generic “ethnic” décor so common in the city’s Indian eateries. Instead, you’ll see collage-like walls of Malayalam film stars, a small shrine dedicated to actor Shobhana and Mohanlal, vintage radios and tiny television sets, a food menu that will take you straight back to Kerala and a bar menu that delivers fusion cocktails you’ve most probably not heard of.
Grishma’s Tryst with Kerala Culture
Grishma Satpathy fell in love with Kerala long before she moved to Paris to pursue a Master’s in International Business. “I’m not a Mallu,” she says with a laugh, and then she explains how that very distance shaped the restaurant’s appetite for authenticity. Years of following Malayalam films, learning recipes, and being friends with a Malayali taught her how Kerala tastes, moves and talks. “I fell in love with it. The food, the culture, the films. For me, it was a new but very close world. I wanted to bring that to Paris.”
Grishma and Alex, friends turned business partners, first ran a digital marketing company in Paris and, through collaborations with local restaurants during the pandemic, came to see how poorly Indian food was represented here. “Everywhere I went, it was labelled Indian, but you won’t believe, it wasn’t made by Indians,” she says. “They would write ‘Indian’ to attract people and frankly scam the locals.”
Kallu & Co. was created to bring people who grew up with recipes from Kerala, staffed by cooks trained on family dishes, and designed as a social space for both Malayalis and the curious Parisians who, surprisingly, already had some fascination with Kerala as a holiday destination or a place known for its Ayurvedic traditions.
“We want to make Kerala cool”
The initial staff training took place in Grisham’s home. They met Indian students, hired Indian cooks, especially Malayalis who had come to Paris to study, and trained them in the family recipes that Alex grew up eating. “We trained them with recipes like Chalakudy pork roast, Angamaly prawns, and more,” she tells me.
“We wanted to make Kerala feel cool again,” she says, and the bar menu is part of that extension. Cocktails like Leaf Me Wet made with curry leaf, Amma’s Wild Side, which mixes mango with green chilli and roasted jeera alongside tequila, Lassi Me Harder, which is a mango lassi with vodka, and Kaam Rasam, an inventive riff built on rasam.
In fact, the restaurant’s iconic dessert has already become a talking point. Banana Flambé, made with caramelised banana, coconut and a splash of Old Monk rum set on fire, is something Grishma calls “Mohanlal’s favourite,” after spotting it in a reel, and giving it their own touch.
The restaurant’s Onam sadya also turned out to be a defining moment in its short opening history. To the surprise of the team, most of the people who showed up were French, and the enthusiasm with which they embraced the banana-leaf spread was unforgettable. “They were asking for more aviyal, more pineapple pachadi, more rice, and even multiple servings of payasam,” Grishma recalls. “We never expected it. Watching French people eat sadya three or four times over was very special.”
Challenges Faced
Parisian diners come with stubborn preconceptions, but understandably so. Many only know or even choose to try “butter chicken” and “cheese naan,”. So Kallu & Co. added paneer butter masala to the vegetarian selection to give hesitant guests a familiar landing point before they explored further. The spice profile has also been adapted to their level of spiciness. “We keep the flavour profile the same, but when Malayalis come, we make it spicier and when French people come, we make it more coconut-based”. Initially, the team offered tasting portions to unfamiliar customers, but because of allergy concerns and the strict food laws in France, these generous samplers are now provided more cautiously.
There have also been creative ways of introducing new flavours. The team imports kallu from Sri Lanka after struggling to bring it in from Kerala, and French customers are sometimes invited to taste it in small shots. “Some of them order a full bottle immediately, while others are nervous,” Grishma says. “But at least they try, and once they trust it, they usually come back for more.”
What the Future of Kallu & Co. Holds
For Grishma, Alex, and Ashik, Kerala food and drinks are only a small part of what they want Kallu & Co. to be. They also want to open an Indian club and become a gathering space where the diaspora and others can come together for karaoke nights, IPL screenings, trivia evenings, and even Indian-themed techno parties. “We want people to know that India is not what they imagine,” Grishma says.
In the few months since it opened, Kallu & Co. has already begun to find its footing. Word of mouth has proven to be the most effective marketing, with each French couple who tries the food recommending it to their friends, while Malayali diners, who often prefer to cook at home, return because the flavours remind them of what they grew up with. For Grishma, the most rewarding part has been watching these two worlds meet at the same table. “We just want to make this a proper Indian spot, where everyone feels at home,” she says.
Kallu & Co. is still new to Paris and learning its way, but it has already managed to create something fresh. By serving Kerala food as it is meant to be, while also making it approachable for those tasting it for the first time, the restobar has become a meeting point for Malayalis and locals alike.
