There are restaurants you visit for the food, and then there are places where the food seems to slow you down. Nana’s at Slohh by Roach Bengaluru, Curio Collection by Hilton belongs to the latter.
The first thing that sets the mood is not necessarily what arrives on the plate. It is the music. English classics play softly in the background, the kind of songs that instantly transport you to lazy Sundays at home, when there was nowhere to rush to and lunch stretched leisurely into the afternoon. The music is romantic, gentle and unhurried, setting the tone for what Nana’s wants its guests to experience: a meal that feels relaxed, familiar and deeply comforting.
That sense of home is at the heart of the food here.
The all-day dining restaurant draws from Karnataka’s Malnad belt, bringing family recipes, regional ingredients and cooking techniques passed down through generations into a luxury hotel setting. The result is a menu that feels thoughtful rather than excessive. Instead of an overwhelming buffet with dozens of dishes competing for attention, Nana’s offers a more tightly curated selection, with each preparation having a reason to be there.
Many of the recipes have come from family kitchens. The kitchen team has been trained in preparations that have their roots in real homes and regional cooking traditions, rather than being versions created simply to fit a hotel buffet.
The difference is evident in the way the food is prepared. Some dishes demand patience, and the kitchen does not try to hurry them.
“The recipes are not very upgraded recipes,” says the chef. “The mutton curry that we are doing takes time. The way it is being done, the roasting of the masalas, being divided into parts, this needs to be done.”
There is a grandmother’s discipline behind that approach. Christina Roach, the founder, recalls how meticulous her grandmother was about the order in which things had to be done, and that attention to process has found its way into the kitchen at Nana’s, again a tribute to her gran.
Several recipes have been taught to the team by family members themselves. The Malnad fish curry, for instance, is a family recipe that has been tested repeatedly, with the founder’s mother returning to the kitchen to evaluate whether it was being prepared correctly.
The same care has gone into recipes such as sannas, kaduk and mutli, while the signature Nana’s biryani has involved considerable attention to the spice level, rice and balance of flavours.
It is this connection to home cooking that makes the Malnad section particularly interesting. Malnad fish curry, Malnad chicken curry, nati-style preparations, kosambari and sundal bring the flavours of Karnataka’s Western Ghats to the table.
For diners accustomed to the predictable international spread associated with five-star hotels, the food can come as a pleasant surprise.
Guests have responded particularly warmly to the Malnad offerings, partly because regional food of this nature is not always easy to find in a luxury hotel setting. What might traditionally be found in a local eatery or a family kitchen has been given space on a hotel buffet without losing its regional identity.
The philosophy extends to the breakfast table too. Nana’s breakfast is deliberately hybrid. Some dishes come straight from the kitchen while others are laid out on the buffet, allowing the meal to retain a sense of freshness rather than feeling like everything has been prepared and left waiting.
There are healthy options, thoughtful combinations of nuts and fresh ingredients, alongside local favourites such as avalakki and sabudana khichdi. There is also a selection of continental breakfast staples for those looking for something more familiar.
And then come the Bangalore dosas. They are not the wafer-thin versions one might automatically associate with the city. Nana’s serves them in a style intended to feel closer to the food one might actually eat in their home. The dosa arrives in a steel thali, immediately adding another layer of familiarity to the experience. It is the kind of presentation that makes you pause and think of your own breakfast table.
Before the meal properly begins, there is Nana’s shot, or Ajji’s elixir, a small burst of energy designed to prepare diners for what follows. Then the breakfast unfolds slowly, with local dishes sitting comfortably alongside international favourites.
The restaurant’s idea of comfort is not restricted to Indian food either. The menu includes classic Italian and Mediterranean preparations, but they are presented in their traditional forms rather than heavily adapted for a hotel audience. The lasagna, for instance, follows a more classic non-Indian approach, using a combination of beef and pork rather than replacing the meat with chicken.
That attention to authenticity is equally visible in the pizza. The pizzas are deliberately light, allowing the ingredients to remain at the center rather than leaving diners weighed down after a meal. Among the choices is the classic Margherita, where the balance between tomato, sauce and cheese becomes the measure of how good a simple pizza can be.
“There is nothing better than a pizza Margherita,” the chef says, adding, “A good Margherita with the perfect balance of sauce, tomato and cheese.”
The menu moves easily between cultures without losing the thread of comfort. There is spaghetti aglio e olio, as well as an eggplant preparation inspired by Southern Italy and the humble food traditions of Sicily and Naples.
Then there are the Bangalore-inspired snacks. Nana’s serves a Bangalore bhel alongside dahi puri and pani puri, while its nipat chaat gives the familiar snack another expression. There is even a jalebi chaat, an unusual combination that has already found its audience.
For those who grew up around Bangalore’s food culture, these dishes offer a different kind of nostalgia. For those discovering them for the first time, they provide an introduction to the city’s less formal culinary vocabulary.
Vegetarians have plenty to explore too. One of the highlights is a slow-cooked chickpea and eggplant curry, prepared with tamarind and a combination of spices that brings together sweet, sour and spicy notes. It is the sort of dish that demonstrates how much flavour can be built around ingredients that are otherwise considered humble.
The bread is another example of the kitchen’s patience. The sourdough is proofed for 36 hours, resulting in a lighter loaf that does not feel heavy despite its long fermentation.
That idea of taking time is central to Nana’s. Slohh is designed around the notion of slowing down in a city where people are constantly moving. The food follows the same philosophy. Recipes take their time. Masalas are roasted carefully. Dough is allowed to proof. Curries are cooked slowly. Family recipes are not hurried into modern interpretations.
“The idea of slow is for the guest to feel that Bangalore is full of popular hotels, it is a busy city. Even if you enter a hotel, walk into a lobby, you see everybody running around. But once you are in this lobby, it is a breather. You don’t feel people running around. That is the soul of slow,” says Christina.
And perhaps that is why the music matters as much as it does. The English classics playing quietly in the background add another layer to the experience. They have the feel of music playing in a countryside restaurant somewhere far away, yet they are also strangely familiar. They evoke a generation for whom English music was simply part of everyday family life, playing in the background during long lunches and lazy weekends.
Against that soundtrack, the meal moves at its own pace. A steel thali carrying a Bangalore dosa. A bowl of Malnad curry. A plate of bhel. A light pizza Margherita. A slow-cooked chickpea curry. A slice of chocolate cake. Nothing feels like it is trying too hard.
Even the coffee has a sense of place. The beans come from Christina’s Roach Coffee estate, are roasted specially and served exclusively at the property, giving the final cup its own local identity.
Dessert, naturally, has its own story, with the chef’s chocolate cake among the signatures. And the small local touches continue beyond the dining table, with treats like Chiroti, Dil kush inspired by Bangalore and its culinary history finding their way into the guest experience.
What emerges at Nana’s is not simply a menu of Karnataka food or a collection of international comfort dishes. It is an attempt to recreate the feeling that food can bring with it: the memory of a grandmother’s kitchen, a Sunday lunch that lasted longer than expected, a familiar song playing somewhere in the background, or a dish that reminds you of home even when you are sitting in a hotel.
The food may come from different parts of Karnataka, Italy and beyond, but the emotion running through it is remarkably consistent. Come in, sit down, listen to the music and take your time.
At Nana’s, that is the point!
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
