A Legacy of Flavour

In 1995, in the sun-baked coastal town of Kundapur along the Karnataka shoreline, a small family kitchen began doing something quietly revolutionary: slow-roasting chicken in pure cow ghee with a hand-ground masala passed down across three generations. There were no shortcuts, no substitutes, and no compromises — only fire, patience, and flavour.

What began as Sunday meals shared with neighbours and extended family gradually drew a loyal following. Word spread the way great food always does — not through advertisements, but through people who simply couldn't stop talking about it. The Kundapur Ghee Roast had found its audience, and that audience kept growing.

By the early 2000s, the demand had outgrown the kitchen. It was time to share this taste with a wider world. The family packed their recipes, their values, and their cast-iron kadhai, and began the journey northward — all the way to Delhi.

“We didn’t invent a recipe. We protected one.” — The Founders

Chef Ramachandra Shetty was 22 years old when he first slow-roasted chicken in pure ghee in his mother's kitchen in Kundapur. He had no culinary school training, no Michelin-starred mentors — only a grandmother's masala recipe, a cast-iron kadhai, and an obsessive belief that good food must never take shortcuts.

Over thirty years, Chef Shetty has built VGGR from a Sunday family ritual into one of Delhi's most revered South Indian dining destinations. He still visits every kitchen weekly, still insists on grinding the base masala by hand, and still personally approves every new menu addition.

His philosophy is simple: If you can taste the shortcut, you've already failed. It's this uncompromising standard that has kept VGGR's flavour consistent from Kundapur to Connaught Place.

“Ghee roast is not a recipe. It is a relationship — between the cook, the fire, and the patience to let the masala bloom at its own pace. You cannot rush flavour. You can only earn it.”