Mohan Shanmugam is a modest Lord, one would hardly be regarded as a Renaissance man. Yet that is precisely the honor that I think he must be given. He runs the modest Chellammal Manpaanai Samayal restaurant in Trichy, a unique establishment where meals are cooked in earthenware pots, soapstone tawas, wood fires and machines he invented.
All 40 dishes they cook every day are healthy and made with cold -pressed oils from their farm. Dishes are brought to your table and you select what you want.
The garden seats of Chellammal Manpaanai Samayal | Photocredit: special arrangement
I have a chance to win Chellammal Manpaanai Samayal (Chellammal is Mohan’s nickname for his wife, Selvi, Manpaire Samayal means ClayPot cooking) on the way to Chettinad. My traveling companion tells me about it and we decide to make a detour from Trichy Airport. We reach the location in 20 minutes. There is no signage outside.
The house is peppered with antiques: a vintage record player plays devotional tunes in one corner, while a grandfather clock in the other is. Inside they have a buffet room (the buffet costs £ 360). We sit outside, on a series of inviting wooden chairs and tables. The local population from the city also flows inside as it gets closer to lunch. The women (and it is a team of the whole women) come in with warm clay pots from the kitchen to the dining room.
Although there is a handwritten menu where the dishes are mentioned, you can also see what is being served and then decide what to eat. The lady who serves us comes to our table with a tray with 20 small clay sums, each filled with one dish. I see okra, beans poriyalMoringa Fry, plantain, banana tribe and bottle pumpkin. Each is priced between £ 15 and £ 30. This allows you to select a larger bowl of Kodo -Gierst or white rice. Then come the Curry’s – Sambar, Moru Curry, Rasam.
We enjoy the meal: it is not spicy or greasy; Simple, fresh flavors and tasting of the fresh ingredients. You can take seconds from whatever you want. Even the water they serve is made with herbs that they say it is help with digestion and cools. Despite eating more than 10 different curries, I am not that full. The clean ingredients used in the meal really make a difference.
The handwritten menu at Chellammal Manpaanai Samayal | Photocredit: Anagha Maureesha
Guests who make their selection of the dishes of the day Photocredit: Anagha Maureesha
A look in the kitchen
After lunch we take a walk through the house. The kitchen is outdoor. I see that OKRA is cooked on a soapstone tawa and sambar that cooks away in a clay pot. That’s when we come across Mohan ourselves. He shows us his workshop where he plays with new inventions and tells us about the restaurant. His interests vary from geology and biology to mechanical engineering.
Mohan, a resident of the sixth generation in the region, says he has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. When he was eight, he made and sell pilots to other children and gathered palm fruits and sell them to his neighbors. He worked as a mining officer and after his retirement, in an attempt to eat healthier, he started the restaurant.
The motorized stone grinder | Photocredit: Anagha Maureesha
He is also an inventor and shows us the machines in the kitchen that are his own creations. “Because of the modern Antianval cooking utensils, we lose the traditional cooking methods. It can be faster to cook on it, but it influences our health.” The wet and dry stone grinding machines, pounds and oils are attached to an engine so that the process is automated.
“It grinds the pastas slowly, just as a person would do. I don’t want to lose nutritional values of the ingredients, so we use cold urgent techniques and fresh ingredients. These machines are not very accurate, but they serve my goal,” says Mohan who is also a TEDx speaker.
All the waste from the kitchen is sent to adjacent farms, where it is fed on the cattle or is used as a compost. “It’s my strong ethics and beliefs about life, diet and biology that led me to the food industry.”
On officers Colony Road, Puthur, Thillai Nagar, Trichy. Only open for lunch, 12.30 pm to 4 pm. Call 9865356896 for more information
Published – August 21, 2025 11:17 am is
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