Gurgaon, Aug 13: Some meals ask to be changed. The Sadya never has. There is a particular kind of quiet that settles over a table right before it begins—the banana leaf laid out, empty and waiting—before the first pour of pickle arrives and the feast unfolds, dish by dish, in an order older than memory. This Onam, OMO Gurgaon invites Delhi-NCR back to that moment, hosting its annual Sadya on 29th and 30th August, across two sittings at 11 am and 1 pm, continuing a tradition the restaurant has now marked for since 2024.
At its heart, OMO‘s Sadya is an exercise in restraint. In a restaurant built around reinvention, the Sadya is deliberately left alone, its structure, sequence, and roster of iconic dishes are preserved exactly as generations have known them. What changes, instead, is where a handful of ingredients come from. A fiddlehead fern foraged in the monsoon, a queen pineapple carried in from Manipur, or a plum from the orchards of Kashmir finding its way into the payasam small, considered additions that let OMO‘s ingredient-led philosophy speak without ever raising its voice.
“For us, Onam Sadya isn’t something we reinvent, it’s something we honour,” says Chef Chetna Chopra, Culinary Director, OMO Gurgaon. “The sequence, the recipes, the rhythm of the meal on a banana leaf—all of that stays exactly as it should be. What we bring to it is our way of looking at ingredients: a fiddlehead fern foraged this monsoon, a pineapple from Manipur, a plum from Kashmir finding its way into the payasam. It’s our team from Kerala who keep this menu honest, and it’s India’s seasonality that quietly shapes it every year.”
That honesty runs through the entire menu, curated in-house with guidance from members of OMO‘s kitchen team who come from South India themselves, cooks for whom this isn’t research, but memory.
On the menu
The feast opens, as tradition demands, with a fiery pairing of Vadukapulli Naranga Achar and Sadya Manga Achar, bitter lemon and mango pickles designed to wake up the palate alongside Inji Pulli and the crackle of Kaya Varatha and Sarkkara Varatiyatu, banana and jaggery-coated chips that no Sadya leaf is complete without. From there, the meal builds into its true centrepiece: a procession of curries and thorans led by Kurukku Kalan, Olan and Avial, joined this year by a foraged monsoon Fiddlehead Thoran, Beans Mezhukupuratiyatu and Cabbage Thoran, while Vendakka Kichadi, Beetroot Pacchadi, Vellerika Pachadi and Madhura Pachadi bring their signature yogurt-laced tang to the table. A Manipuri queen Pineapple Pulisherry and a comforting Matanga Moru Curry round out the savoury spread, plated alongside Pazham and crisp Pappadam. At the centre of it all sits a mound of Matta red rice, waiting to be ladled over with Parippu, homemade ghee, Pineapple Rasam and Sambhar, before the meal winds down, unhurried, into a seasonal Kashmiri plum Payasam.
More than a menu, this is a full sensory return to a feast that has been eaten this way for generations, a reminder that some traditions don’t need reinventing, only remembering. In a city that rarely slows down, OMO‘s Sadya asks for a couple of unhurried hours, a banana leaf, and an appetite for something that hasn’t changed in all the ways that matter. This Onam, it simply sets the table again and lets Kerala do the rest.
Event Details:
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Dates: 29th and 30th August
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Timings: 11 am and 1 pm (two sittings)
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Venue: OMO, R-004, 2nd Floor, DLF, Galleria Market, Sector 28, DLF Phase IV, Gurugram, Haryana 122009
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Tickets to be booked: https://link.district.in/
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