A restaurant on West 37th Street is swapping its usual duck and clay pot fish curries for a 27-dish vegetarian spread served on a banana leaf, all in honor of Kerala's biggest harvest celebration. Chatti by Regi Mathew, tucked into Midtown Manhattan, is hosting its Onasadhya feast for lunch on August 24, August 25 and August 27, with a dinner seating added on August 26.
Onam is a ten-day festival marking the Malayalam new year and celebrating the harvest season in Kerala, India, and it generally falls between August and October, according to Time Out New York. In 2026, the observance runs the full ten days from August 16 through August 26, closing out on Thiruvonam, the festival's final day and its primary harvest feast, per The National. Thiruvonam is the day the mythical King Mahabali is welcomed back, according to the Malayalam solar calendar month of Chingam. Onasadhya itself is the grand vegetarian feast held on that day.
What's Actually on the Leaf
Chatti's version of the feast lands on the table the traditional way: on a banana leaf, per the restaurant's own description carried by Time Out New York. The 27-dish lineup includes mango pickle and Kerala lime pickle, sun-dried crispy curd chilies, sambar and pappadam, and fried raw banana coated in jaggery syrup, with some completely vegan dishes mixed into the spread. The meal finishes with Kerala spiced buttermilk flavored with shallots, ginger, curry leaves and green chilies.
Traditional Onasadhya etiquette is famously exacting about how that leaf gets loaded. Diners are meant to be served a fresh plantain leaf with its narrow tip pointing to their left, with dry side dishes, savories, and pickles arranged along the top half before rice and gravies arrive in sequential rounds, according to Slurrp. It's a ritual, not just a plating choice, rooted in the rustic toddy shops of Kerala known as kallu shaap, where naturally fermented palm wine is traditionally paired with small, intensely spiced sharing plates called touchings, as NDTV Food explains.
A Chef Who Spent Years Chasing These Recipes
That toddy shop tradition is exactly what Chatti is built around day to day. Outside of the Onam feast, the restaurant serves grilled lamb chops and clay pot fish curries as an homage to Kerala's iconic toddy shops, per Time Out New York's reporting. Chef Regi Mathew, who was designated one of India's top chefs in 2024, made his stateside debut with Chatti in 2025 after years running Kappa Chakka Kandhari in Chennai and Bengaluru.
Getting the menu right took more than professional instinct. According to Times of India, Mathew and his team spent more than three years traveling across Kerala, visiting over 300 home kitchens and 100 traditional toddy shops to research and test roughly 800 recipes before opening the Midtown restaurant. Mathew has said he champions the foods of Kerala and works to preserve the region's diverse food traditions using recipes drawn from mothers and home cooks, a mission that has earned him international recognition: he received the One Knife Award at the Best Chef Awards in Milan in October 2025, after winning the same honor in Dubai the year before, according to Onmanorama.
Booking the Feast, and the Bigger Picture
Chatti's Onasadhya feast costs $95 for adults and $75 for kids, with seatings on August 24 starting at 11:30 am. Guests can book the experience through OpenTable and Resy, the same platforms Chatti uses for its standard reservations, which typically open 15 days in advance, per Resy. Outside of the seasonal feast, the restaurant also runs a Kerala-inspired cocktail program with drinks like the Malayali Old Fashioned and the Kathakali.
Onam has been an official state holiday in Kerala since 1961 and is celebrated by millions across the global Malayali diaspora, including nearly one million Keralites living in the UAE alone, per The National's reporting. Chatti's arrival fits into a broader shift in Manhattan's Indian dining scene toward hyperlocal regional cuisines rather than pan-Indian menus, a trajectory that The Nod Mag traces back to coastal South Indian restaurant Semma earning a Michelin star in 2022. For Midtown diners this month, that shift shows up as 27 dishes on a single banana leaf.
