Krishna Shetty’s honesty is as refreshing as the filter coffee that has been brewed at Matunga’s Ramashraya for 83 years. “A new place brings many challenges, and we are ready to work on them and offer the best of Ramashraya to our new and old customers at the Lalbaug restaurant,” says the youngest of the Shetty brothers. Krishna (in pic) manages the new Lalbaug outlet of the iconic Udupi hotel, but his older brothers — Akshay and Amarjit — are the soul of the restaurant that was started by their grandfather Shyambabu Shetty, he tells us. Krishna who has appeared on television shows such as Dil Hi Toh Hai and Time Machine, has always focused more on his career as an actor.

For this reviewer, who has spent five great years of her life eating Mysore dosas  and melt-in-your-mouth butter idlis (Rs 48) at Ramashraya while studying at Ruia College, news that the Matunga landmark had opened a second outlet came as a pleasant surprise. Traditional family-run restaurants and cafés of Mumbai are most comfortable in their own corners of the city. In fact, the first change we saw at Ramashraya was a decade ago. Back in 2012, they made the first-ever and absolutely welcome addition to their OG menu with seasonal fruit sheeras.