Our Story Since 1973

Long before the age of food delivery apps and restaurant chains, Hyderabadi cuisine was a closely guarded family tradition — spices sourced from Laad Bazaar, slow-cooked in clay pots over open wood fires, reserved for weddings and celebrations in the old city's grand havelis.

When Mohammed Abdul Kareem migrated to Chennai in the early 1970s, he carried with him the flavours of that old city. Mount Road — then still Madras's commercial spine — was a city in transition, hungry for something new. Kareem's simple biryani, cooked in the traditional dum style with whole spices, saffron, and long-grain Basmati, was unlike anything the city had tasted.

The secret, he would say, was patience. The biryani is sealed with dough, cooked on slow heat for nearly three hours, and only opened at the table. That ritual — the lift of the lid, the cloud of saffron-scented steam — remains unchanged to this day. Fifty years on, we still cook it the same way. Some traditions are too good to improve.