MTR: From Bangalore to London

At a time when restaurants have been struggling in the midst of successive lockdowns, the Bangalore brand, MTR – Mavalli Tiffin Room – has opened a branch in London’s Harrow neighbourhood. The development grabbed media attention and MTR loyalists cheered. That is how well-loved a brand this is, and MTR is owned as much by its loyal customers as by the Maiya family.

Its nearly 100-year-old history goes back to 1920, when the Maiya brothers, Parameshwara, Ganappayya and Yagnanarayana left Kota, a hamlet near Udupi, famed for its temple-cooking traditions, and made their way to Bangalore. Proficient cooks, they found employment in affluent homes. Impressed by their skills, one of their employers encouraged the eldest of the three, Parameshwara Maiya, to start a small eatery on Lalbagh Fort Road. Brahmin Coffee Club opened in 1924, serving coffee and idlis. After his death five years later, the younger brothers took over the business.

Yagnanarayana, or Yagnappa as he was called, displayed a remarkable affinity for the business. In 1951, he went to Europe to study how restaurants functioned there. He returned, determined to implement in his restaurant the high standards of cooking, hygiene and service he had seen on his travels.

Around this time, Yagnappa also felt that the word ‘club’ had elitist connotations. So, Brahmin Coffee Club became Mavalli Tiffin Room after the locality where it was situated. He kept his prices affordable, so more people could enjoy his offerings. In 1960, the restaurant shifted to its present location on Lalbagh Road and there it would remain, a culinary landmark for decades to come.

After Yagnappa, the business passed to his nephew, Harishchandra Maiya. He had his task cut out: maintaining the high standards MTR had set for itself.

MTR’s tiffin dishes such as the rava idli, which the restaurant is credited with inventing during a time of rice shortage, masala dosa served with a thimble-ful of ghee and the Sunday special of chandrahara, a rich sweet, became some of Bangalore’s most popular. And the queues grew longer.

After Harishchandra Maiya’s passing in 1999, his three children, Vikram, Hemamalini and Arvind, stepped in, fully aware that they had inherited not a restaurant, but a legacy. While their father had never been in favour of expansions, the younger Maiyas decided they had to expand.

Their uncompromising approach to quality has ensured that customers are satisfied with the offerings at the branches, even if they feel the ambience isn’t the same as in the vintage original.

The Maiya siblings certainly want to grow this uniquely Bangalore brand and take it further afield, but they are certain that they should not in the process lose what MTR is all about: traditional food cooked with the purest ingredients, served in a clean setting at affordable prices.

Now, London will savour top class masale dose, bisibelebhath and rava idli and get to taste nostalgia and legacy as well.