Chimer of the Month

Ratna Cafe

Steaming hot idlis soaked in tasty sambar is typically South Indian and this combination reminds Chennaites of no other place than Rathna Café standing in the heart of Triplicane, Chennai. All those who have been here atleast once, would vouch that they savoured that experience and would love to indulge in the same again. Smelling the aroma of lunch, I entered this old place and met the owner, Rajendra Gupta.

Rathna Café was opened in 1948 by Tiruloknath Gupta. It originally had about 80 seats in the ground floor, 40 seats in the first floor and later on the air-conditioned wing was added. Rajendra Gupta bought it from his uncle in the year 2002 and today it has 340 seats in Triplicane, with branches having sprung up in T Nagar, Velachery, inside Tidel Park campus and recently in Triuvanmiyur.

A new branch is being opened in Central Raliway Station next month. All the branches today serve South Indian and North Indian food with the Tiruvanmiyur branch being a multi-cuisine one which includes Chinese, Intalian, Mexican etc…

I enquired what magnetized people to this eatout and he stated that they served food of the same high quality with which they started nearly sixty years ago. They still have the same two main chefs who train the others. Each of their branch has an R. O plant to treat water and only that pure water is used for all their cooking, including steaming of their famous idlis.

Ratna Cafe - the old ambience Rajendra Gupta

Eighty percent of their cooking is centralized in the kitchen at Triplicane to ensure the same high quality to all the branches. He said that there was great joy in seeing regular customers who come here to enjoy their food. Infact, old customers are even addicted to the familiar ambience that they insist we don’t renovate this place, hence we have retained one area with the same old benches and stools.

“Even yesterday, there was a customer who came here and told me that he has been eating in Rathna Café from the time it was started in 1948 when he was a small child. It was nice when he complemented that the sambar tastes the same as it tasted way back then” said Rajendra Gupta.

“Our aim is to serve quality food and keep up the good name that we have earned over the years”, he concluded with a sense of contentment and satisfaction waiting to open more branches and be hospitable to more Chennaites looking for authentic quality food to satisfy their taste buds.

Telephone number +9144 2848718, +9144 4335 7276, +9144 24341600

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Written By: Mala
Date Posted: 9/20/2007
Number of Views: 1619

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