How these Kochi professionals quit their jobs to open specialty restaurants

What could possibly be common between a dentist, a chartered accountant and an IT professional? Superficially, nothing much. But Abraham Mathew, Antony Jose and Sreejith M are bound by a passion for food that they quit their careers and turned restaurateurs, setting up three of Kochi’s popular, specialty restaurants. 

Abraham confesses he has not worked as a dentist for too long. He worked in Chennai briefly before returning home in 2015-16, to Irinjalakuda, to join his family’s medical practice where he worked for a while before making the detour. “I come from a family of doctors, and I also went down the dentistry path. When I was in school, I did not know what I wanted to do so I just went with the flow!” says the founder of Grana Pizzeria in Panampilly Nagar. He was in the process of setting up a multi-cuisine restaurant, Soul Kitchen Co, in Irinjalakuda, when the pandemic struck. This turned him towards making pizzas, creating a road map for a pizzeria, three years down the line. 

Tony’s Kitchen is known for its pan-Asian cuisine
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

While for Antony Jose of Tony’s Kitchen, Kacheripady, the restaurant happened sooner than he planned. The chartered accountant knew his path lay in the culinary arts, but his parents wanted him to get a ‘professional’ degree first. This way he had his Plan B in place before Plan A. Once that box was ticked, Tony flew to Le Cordon Bleu, Ottawa. A two-year stint there taught him almost everything about working in and running a kitchen. 

“But the plan was never to dive right into it! I wanted to work for a few years, gain some experience before I launched my own restaurant,” says Tony, who returned home in 2024. Tony’s Kitchen at French Toast, Kacheripady, threw open its doors in November 2024 and it has been an eventful year of learning, he admits. 

For the joy of feeding

The Biryani Store tucked away in a beautifully airy property in Kaloor, came to be because of a combination of factors — owner Sreejith M’s love of good food inherited from his maternal grandfather, the happiness he derives from feeding people and a desire to be an entrepreneur. Sreejith, former IT manager with Decathlon, has carried this dream for more than a decade. “I would try food wherever I went, because I love food and feeding people. Having toyed with the idea, I took the plunge in  2019-20.”

Margherita pizzas at Grana Pizzeria 
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

All three men speak of the ‘joy’ they derive from food, not just as food lovers but also, as Tony puts it, “the joy of having the space to create something, get creative with cooking and serve it to people.” 

Interestingly, though a business in food was a distant dream, the pandemic accelerated the process. With time on hand, they started cooking at home first experimentally and then for friends, family and others. 

Abraham Mathew
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT

Since work on Soul Kitchen Co stopped and he had free time, Abraham began trying to make different kinds of pizzas. Not satisfied with the regular, electric oven he even bought a dome oven for it. As he gained in confidence, he often took to social media not just to post about his progress but also to announce pizza pop-ups of sorts on certain days. 

People from as far as Thiruvananthapuram drove to Irinjalakuda for his pizzas. By the time the pandemic ended, Soul Kitchen Co was up and running. Meanwhile, his pizzas gained clout and a fan following, which led to him opening Grana Pizzeria in Kochi in December 2024.  

Lockdown opportunity

The lockdown, for Sreejith, was an opportunity to figure out how he wanted to go about his business. Research had been on for more than a decade, every time he ate out, every place he travelled to was preparation for setting up his business. In 2019-20, he started making small batches of biryani in his home kitchen, supplying to small gatherings of friends and family. 

Emboldened by the feedback, he set up a cloud kitchen in 2021 using food delivery aggregators. The Biryani Store biryani climbed on the charts to be counted among the top biryanis in Kochi. That was the final push to open an eponymous restaurant in 2023. The restaurant today churns out 700-1000 kilograms of biryani on any given weekend.    

Antony Jose in his kitchen at Tony’s Kitchen
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT

For Antony too it was an opportunity to experiment with the kind of food he wanted to serve. As a home chef he hosted pop-ups to showcase and hone his skills. He started with Japanese cuisine, curating The Ramen Experience, making different kinds of ramen and gaining a following. Antony could well be the reason why there is so much ramen in Kochi today. Right now, he describes the food at his restaurant as ‘pan-Asian within the structure of Japanese cuisine’. 

The two years in Canada, starting at the lowest rung of the ladder, equipped him for the chef’s role, but he wanted to work at other kitchens to gain experience. “I had even applied for jobs in Dubai and Singapore, but then this space became available and there I was opening Tony’s Kitchen, last November.”   

Self-taught and learning

Though, later, Antony trained to be a chef (in French cuisine), he, like Abraham and Sreejith, is also self-taught. Setting up the restaurant came with a set of lessons, “a steep learning curve,” as Abraham puts it. 

They talk of the several hours they spent experimenting in the kitchen or near the oven, finding the sweet spot of confidence to venture out. Rather than spread themselves thin in terms of the menu, they have chosen to specialise in food that they love. So, for Abraham it is pizza and for Tony, pan-Asian cuisine because “I really love it… love to eat it!”

For Sreejith, however, it was more about legacy. “My maternal grandfather was a huge foodie, for example, he would get cooks from Malabar to cook at his house. And he had curated a handful of recipes, which he handed down to my mother who is a fabulous cook. The origin of our biryani lay there.” The Biryani Store also serves donne biryani.  

The biryani at The Biryani Store  
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Initially Sreejith hired a cook but quickly realised it would not work and that he had to learn more. “The first one-and-half years were tough, but I kept fine-tuning recipes and creating an Excel spreadsheet with details from the ingredients to cook time. Blame it on the IT guy in me! Now I have perfected it, it can be scaled and duplicated. The biggest plus? I don’t need to depend on a cook, anyone here can do it if they follow the instructions.” 

Antony also says that his training as a CA helps him in the running of the restaurant, the accounting aspect of running a business. “Both my training as a chartered accountant and as a chef help run the business. Though, sometimes, the accounting would keep me out of the kitchen more than I like. Now it is better! And yes, I file my GST, taxes etc on my own but I also have my former employers helping me!”   

The going has not been easy, but their conversation is peppered with satisfaction, happiness, enjoyment and the best one, “should have done it sooner!”