Forty-eight years of write-ups, reviews, festival mentions and the occasional "best biryani" list. The Onmanorama piece is the one the family laminated and hung above the dum-pot.
Sagar's parottas are flaky yet soft, their meat and fish curries rich, spicy and flavoursome. At one time Sagar was synonymous with the Kozhikode Biryani — and the kitchen has not budged from that standard. Pair the curries with the porottas and finish with hot tea; this is a foodie paradise on a road that has otherwise changed entirely.
Chilli chicken and the chicken-fry-with-crumbs are signature dishes. Quick service, moderate prices, generous portions. The biryani comes with raita, dates pickle and lime — and is what half the queue is here for. Best for a late dinner; the dum-pot re-opens at eight for the after-cinema crowd.
The Pathiri Meen Porichathu is an evening-only speciality — thin rice-flour pancakes paired with a crisp-fried sardine and a deep, dark Malabar fish curry. It is, in our food editor's opinion, the single best reason to walk into Sagar after six in the evening. Parotta and meen curry is available only till afternoon.
Sagar on Mavoor Road has been part of every conversation about Kozhikode biryani since the late seventies. Even after newer, flashier biryani houses have opened in Calicut, the Sagar dum-pot — short-grain khyma, slow-bhuna masala, finished with ghee — remains the standard against which the city measures the rest.
By half-past eleven, Mavoor Road has settled. The shutters are down. The bus stand is quiet. But the lights at Sagar are still on, the dum-pot still has biryani, and the late-shift waiters still recognise their regulars. There is a particular comfort in a restaurant that does not lock its doors before midnight.
The Pathiri Meen Porichathu after sundown is the single dish I drive across the city for. It has not changed in thirty years. Neither has the chai. Neither, for that matter, has the host — who still asks after my mother by name and remembers that I don't take onion in my raita.
Best Indo-Malabar restaurant
Restaurants of note · Kozhikode
4+ stars · 4 years running
Featured · oldest running list
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