From the backwaters of Kerala's Malabar coast to the heart of Dubai's most Kerala neighbourhood — and the recipe book that made the journey.
The story of Aaraamam is the story of refusing to simplify food that should never be simplified. Here is how it began.
A family from Kerala's Malabar coast opens a small restaurant on a Karama street that already smells of coconut oil and curry leaves. The menu is handwritten. The biryani is dum-cooked in a sealed pot, exactly as it was in the family home.
Word spreads through Karama's Kerala community. Families drive across Dubai for the Sunday meals. Office workers discover the lunch thali. The restaurant fills before noon and runs out of payasam by evening.
Demand grows enough to open a second Karama branch. The decision comes with one condition: the recipes do not change, the sourcing does not change, and the kitchen is run the same way. Both branches still operate this way.
Aaraamam runs two branches in Dubai. The biryani still takes the same number of hours. The payasam still takes three. The recipe book has not been updated, because there is no reason to update it.
Aaraamam is not a hotel chain that added a Kerala menu. It is a family kitchen that opened a restaurant. The order matters.
Before there was a restaurant, there was a kitchen in Kerala — spices ground by hand, biryani cooked in a dum pot sealed with dough, payasam stirred until the house smelled of cardamom.
When the family moved to Dubai, that kitchen came with them. Aaraamam was the natural extension: the same food, the same method, available every day for anyone who wanted to eat like they were home.
Every curry leaf comes from the same supplier they have used since 2005. Every kudam puli is soaked before use. No cook at Aaraamam uses a ready-made masala paste. These are not marketing points — they are simply the way it has always been done.
— The family behind Aaraamam
We update this never.
No pre-mix. No shortcuts. Cardamom, cloves, black pepper — ground in-house, every morning.
Kerala cooking is coconut oil cooking. We have never substituted it. We never will.
Biryani is dum-sealed. Fish curry simmers for hours. Payasam is stirred until done. No pressure cooker shortcuts.