The award-winning Melbourne restaurateur is giving south India its time to shine and teaching us how to do the same.
Keralan flavours burst onto the Melbourne scene late last year in all their spicy, aromatic glory when Misha Tropp opened Toddy Shop in Fitzroy. The intimate venue – it seats just 20 – has put home-style Keralan cooking in the spotlight, along with cocktails showcasing south Indian flavours. And, as the name suggests, the traditional drink made from fermented palm sap, toddy, is also front and centre. The bar and restaurant is Mischa’s take on the toddy shops of Kerala, bringing this under-represented cuisine and its vibrant flavours to a whole new crowd.
For Mischa, who was recently crowned Best New Talent in the annual Gourmet Traveller Awards, it’s about championing the food of his heritage; his mother is from the southern Indian state. He’s fine-tuned his cooking while living in India at various times, and he’s previously dished it up at local venues such as Brunswick’s Host and The Rochester Hotel in Fitzroy. But Toddy Shop is the first venue of his own. “I committed to taking on the site before I knew what I was going to do there,” Mischa says. “Once I had it, I realised I could do something niche that I wouldn’t necessarily do in a bigger site.”
And so, Keralan drinks and food found their new home, and it’s clearly a labour of love. “Keralan food is the result of its environment,” Mischa explains. “It’s a tropical place with the ocean on one side, mountains on the other, and rivers and backwaters. It has a history of the spice trade, so the cuisine is spicy, and there’s ingredients like cloves, cardamom and turmeric, and a heavy use of seafood and roasted coconut.”
The menu at Toddy Shop is made up of five specials of meat and seafood, plus vegetable sides, bread and rice. “The dishes rotate as whatever vegetables come in and we change it up,” he says. From curries and dry fried dishes to flaky parota bread, it all conveniently goes hand-in-hand with a drink, and the selection here is especially enticing. “You can get carried away with being creative sometimes when it comes to cocktails, and that’s great, but if you don’t tick the basics, it’s often not as good. So, for us, it’s about how we can put a spin on something people already know and love, and make them our own,” Mischa says.
That’s where their riffs like the Benagli Martini come in. Made using a saffron-infused vodka, it puts a subtle twist on the OG cocktail. There’s also the Toddy Colada that’s loaded with authentic south Indian flavours, blending coconut rum with toddy, pineapple, curry leaf and lime. Similarly, the Gold Fashioned combines bourbon with turmeric, bitters and jaggery, with this unrefined cane sugar adding a rich hit of malty notes. The Gulkand Sour is another example of delicate flavours mingling in new ways – here, it’s rose petal jam, AKA gulkand, with rhubarb vermouth, gin and lime. Refreshingly different, these cocktails all play beautifully with the food.
For anyone keen to play with south Indian flavours in their drinks, Mischa says to start with the basics. “If you have a cocktail recipe that works already, that’s your first stage,” he says. “Start with something classic as a base recipe and work with flavours that can match with that,” he says. That’s where that saffron-infused vodka comes in for their Bengali Martini, and other additions to traditional drinks, like the pinch of black pepper that goes into their take on the Paloma, or the fresh ginger that lifts their Mango Marg. This might mean wandering around a good Indian grocer to see which herbs and spices jump out. “Sometimes I find ingredients that are interesting and work backwards from there. For me, the interesting thing is giving people something they know but in different contexts.”
For those looking to really up the Keralan ante in their drinks, working with cocktails that feature the cuisine’s core flavours is also a great place to start – the Coconut Tamaretto Sour is just one example that lets coconut and tamarind sing. Or you could take the Bloody Mary in a spicy Indian-inspired direction, dried chilli and fresh-ground spices included. Consider your garnishes, with fresh curry leaves a super-aromatic addition that will switch up the simplest of drinks – a G&T is made for it. You could also follow Toddy Shop’s lead with their saffron-spiked vodka and infuse your favourite spirits with spices like cardamom, cloves and pepper. And if you really get the bug, you could make your own flavoured syrups to add to mixed drinks at home, again working with those key Keralan spices.
