Titu’s Taqueria is Raising the Steaks for Good Food
Madhulica Kallatt meets Titu, a man making waves in Kochi’s food scene with his restaurant, Titu’s Taqueria, where customers from near and far (and we mean really far) come to sample perfectly cooked steak.
Kerala is known for its kaleidoscopic range of sumptuous beef dishes — beef curry, beef ularthiyathu (beef fried with spices and coconut shavings), beef stew, to name a few. But on some nights, beef-lovers from all over Kochi make other dinner plans. At 9pm, they make their way through the streets of Palarivattom to Nethaji Road. All roads lead to Titu’s — an unassuming Mexican restaurant situated in the homely digs of an independent house and its front yard. A restaurant that serves arguably the best steak in Kochi.
Titu’s Taqueria (fondly referred to as Titu’s), started out as a cloud kitchen in November 2021. It opened as a dine-in in May 2022, and has slowly but steadily amassed an army of regulars who will overcome all obstacles (pedestrian, meteorological or cosmic), to make their weekly pilgrimage to the steak place in Kochi.
While the steak alone is enough to draw any self-respecting gourmand to Titu’s, there is an even bigger draw for some — the man behind the steak, Titu himself. With a reputation for perfection and authenticity, Titu and his Taqueria have helped to create a new dining out culture in Kochi.
The Pull of Mexican food
The eponymous owner of Titu’s Taqueria found himself at a crossroads in early 2021. He quit his job as an engineer in Dubai and returned to his hometown, Kochi, where he was faced with two options: he could either continue down his path as an engineer, or do something closer to the heart. Although he had no formal culinary training, Titu dreamed of starting a restaurant. He was drawn to Mexican food, a cuisine largely absent in Kochi’s culinary landscape.
Titu spent 7 months perfecting his corn tortilla, experimenting and researching alone in his apartment, between field trips to Bangalore to taste Mexican food, a cuisine he had hitherto never sampled. Using his skills as a mechanical engineer, he customised his own corn mill from an idli batter machine. When he finally cracked his tortilla recipe, he felt confident about taking the next step: opening a cloud kitchen — a neat little square of cyber real estate on Instagram to serve burritos and three kinds of tacos: pollo asado, baja style fish taco and carne asada.
Titu spent seven months perfecting his tortilla recipe.
Taco de barbacoa
Tace de huevo with guacamole, topped with charred spring onion and chilli crisp made by another local chef, Ekta Manning.
Pulled beef taco with onion, cilantro, roasted salsa and topped with salsa macha
Pulled beef taco with guacamole, topped with salsa macha (a Mexican chilli oil)
Things started slow. Titu realised that people didn’t seem to know Mexican food. “There was a lot of stuff like Mexican chowmein, which people considered Mexican food,” he says.
One taco, however, soar into popularity: the carne asada, a corn tortilla topped with beef steak, roasted salsa, guacamole, onion and cilantro. “Guests loved the steak in it”. When Titu’s Taqueria opened as a dine-in restaurant, Titu decided to offer steak as a standalone dish alongside the tacos. “If people come to try the steak, they might try a taco, just to see what it is. That kind of worked out in my favour.”
Diners flocked in: a section were guests visiting from abroad, but many locals came for the tacos and churros. Titu’s Taqueria’s claim to fame became their flavourful, cooked-to-perfection steaks.
Kochi’s Meet-Cute with Steak
If you find yourself at one of Titu’s wooden tables and peruse the spiral-bound plastic menu, you will notice that after the first page of Appetisers and Tacos, Titu’s offers six different cuts of steak — ribeye, filet mignon, picanha, striploin, denver and flat iron. Each cut is accompanied with a detailed note describing flavour, tenderness, fattiness and location of the cut. Another page is dedicated to explaining the four degrees of doneness and their impact on the meat’s colour, texture and flavour, accompanied by a diagram of a cow with all the cuts marked on it. If you glance up from the menu, it is also hard to miss ‘Steak Anatomy 101’ — a diagram in large white brushstrokes on one wall, right beside a ‘Live Every Day is Like it’s Taco Tuesday’ mural.
Prince, a 32-year-old Kochi native and regular at Titu’s, tells us offhanded that he doesn’t eat beef, as he devours a flat iron and filet mignon. “I mean, I only eat beef at Titu’s. I don’t like the fat on beef in naadan [traditional Malayali beef dishes] food. Here, I can choose to order only the non-fatty steak.”
The range of choice at Titu’s was a first for many in the city. “We don’t have that [steak] culture here. For us, it’s just beef curry cut, where you can’t distinguish between the cuts of meat. But each cut has its own flavour profile,” says Titu. As Titu’s first ever dine-in customer, Joseph Paul George, aptly put it, “Titu gave us six different options for steak at a time when every restaurant I’ve ever been to, even excellent ones outside of India, gave only one or two options. With barely anything to choose from, you can’t cater to people’s individual preferences.”
All is not well (done) with overcooked steak
Titu’s Taqueria embodies a warm, casual atmosphere where diners are encouraged to eat with their hands (especially the steak) and drop any kind of fine-dining pretence. It does have one golden rule — no well-done steaks. Titu’s views on steak well-done is made clear in the restaurant’s menu, which states “Oye, you have destroyed the flavour” beneath the description of a well-done steak.
Ribeye seared with salt and pepper, served with sea salt flakes and chimichurri
Slices of ribeye steak
Titu explains that this has to do with 4 factors: toughness, dryness, flavour (or lack thereof), and financial pragmatism (or lack thereof). “If you cook the meat more,” Titu explains, “it becomes drier, the beef’s flavour is drained out, it loses its juiciness, and you pay a hefty amount of money to eat a BDF (beef dry fry).” Further, while a Kerala beef dry fry has the benefit of myriad spices and aromatics to add flavour back into the dish, a steak is often enjoyed for the flavour of the meat itself.
This ‘no well done’ policy has strong supporters and detractors, with some like Joseph Paul who think it is “absolutely great;” and others who don’t appreciate their preferences being steamrolled.
Things were certainly not smooth-sailing when Titu first opened. “I have had fights with a lot of customers,” he confesses. But, he began to realise that he couldn’t expect customers who might be first time steak-eaters to know, appreciate or care about the intricacies of steak beforehand, especially when his own knowledge of meat and steak are newfound. He focussed on a new goal, “I want to make sure that my customers know what they are going to eat before they place an order or before they eat the meat.” This is palpable in every facet of the dining experience at Titu’s Taqueria — the menu reads like an introductory guide to steak, and the waitstaff will clarify any doubts beforehand, and assuage any food-related worries.
Most customers eventually come around when Titu recommends medium-rare over well done. Take Sonal, for instance. A self-professed ‘well done girl,’ Sonal asked for a well-done steak, mentioning her apprehensions about eating rare and medium-rare steak which she perceived as being bloody and undercooked. In response, Titu explained that what she thought was blood was actually myoglobin, a fluid that turns red when exposed to oxygen, and that rare beef steak was perfectly safe, since bacteria does not penetrate the meat. Titu’s passion and extensive knowledge about meat won Sonal over, and that evening, she sampled (and enjoyed) a medium-rare steak. Other customers like Divyata and Mira preferred their steak well done too — until they tried medium-rare. After eating her first meal at Titu’s, Divyata shared, “I’ve converted. I’m a changed woman.”
A New Eating Culture
A lot has changed in Kochi’s food scene over the last few years. The city seems to be in transition, with new cuisines and experimental restaurants opening. Kochi now has a successful Korean restaurant, a new Japanese restaurant with in speciality udon noodles, several new steak places and restaurants serving only slow-cooked meat dishes.
Titu attributes this burgeoning food scene to a new ‘travel culture'. “Because people are travelling more, there is more exposure to different cuisines... People are willing to try out new stuff and are getting the hang of these cuisines.”
Filet mignon seared with salt and pepper served with sea salt flakes and chimichurri
Sliced filet mignon
However, when it comes to steak, Joseph believes that Titu played a big role in making it popular and accessible. Steak was largely perceived as a posh, fine-dining dish, restricted to the wealthy who ate with forks and knives. “Titu completely took that notion down and said, ‘Everyone should be eating steak. It’s something everyone should enjoy’,” says Joseph. “Another reason why I enjoy Titu’s is [because] it’s not a fancy atmosphere. I can wear shorts, go there, have a good time, eat an exceptionally good steak, and not have to suffer through the pretentiousness I usually have to go through when I eat outside India, or anywhere else.”
When asked how he sees his own role in this burgeoning food scene, Titu is hesitant. “I think to an extent, I was able to educate people on steak, and the whole medium-rare culture... I think I kind of helped people understand that there are a lot of cuisines in the world which need to be appreciated.”
But if the steady stream of regulars, newcomers and enchanted out-of-towners pouring in and out of Titu’s Taqueria every evening is any indication, Titu has made his mark in Kochi. People across the city, through a sprawling game of Chinese whispers, came to find Titu’s, a place where not too long ago, most would have swooned at the sight of ‘blood’ and shuddered at the thought of anything other than extremely well-cooked meat. They come with their friends, week after week, to have a good time over a shared plate of steak, interrupted by the only thing worthy of stopping conversation at the dinner table: truly good food.
Madhulica Kallatt is an independent writer who grew up in Mumbai and now lives in Kochi, Kerala. She loves telling stories and she loves food, even if it doesn’t always love her. Follow her on Instagram
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