The New Indian Express ·
Benne There, Done That
After a long evening of cricket coaching in Bengaluru, Akhil Iyer, then a teenager, would make his way to a darshini—the city’s quintessential quick-service eateries. He would order a benne dosa, its golden surface glistening with butter, crisp enough to crackle from outside while the inside stays as soft as melting butter. For Shriya Narayan, who grew up in South Bengaluru, it was the fragrance of the darshini that lingered. The warm, fermented aroma of dosa batter, the sizzle of the tawa, the perfume of butter hitting a hot griddle—all became vivid childhood memories. After the couple married and moved to Mumbai for work, homesickness often arrived as a craving for benne dosa.
That craving became Benne, which the couple launched in Mumbai in 2024. At its heart is the Bengaluru-style benne dosa. The restaurant serves Bengaluru-style South Indian food, offering an alternative to the more ubiquitous Tamil and Udupi styles. It is both an ode to Bengaluru’s darshinis and a contemporary interpretation of them. With its fifth outlet now coming in Gurugram, Benne retains one of the darshini’s defining quirks: standing community tables. “Our idea is to deliver comfort within the true darshini experience. Such a setting allows people to engage with others,” says Iyer, now 38.
For the couple, recreating that particular dosa had been simmering for years. Their home became an experimental kitchen. “While trying to recreate the authentic recipe, we made and ate some horrible dosas,” Iyer says, laughing. “Our home used to smell of fermentation.” Narayan, 33, adds, “We had tasted so much that I used to say my body is not 70 per cent water but chutney.”
