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Up to 30 dishes in one meal: Some UAE restaurants start serving Onam sadhyas
Restaurants are facing higher costs this year, with vegetable and banana leaf prices rising up to 40 per cent amid supply disruptions linked to the regional conflict
- PUBLISHED: Sat 22 Aug 2026, 6:00 AM
Some restaurants in the UAE have already started serving Onam sadhyas (Onam feast) this weekend, with others gearing up to cater to hundreds of thousands of people during the main Onam feast days from August 26. However, this year, the festive meal comes with a higher price tag as vegetable and banana leaf costs have surged due to the regional conflict.
On Friday, Calicut Paragon served sadhyas to more than 600 people as part of their corporate order, while Malabar Tiffin House has had corporate orders of up to 800 people. Some restaurants began serving the sadhyas for dining customers starting Saturday, August 21. Grand Entree in Karama and Street Food on Sheikh Zayed Road are some of them.
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"We began serving sadhya in our restaurant from August 16 and have been continuing to do so," said Mihraz Ibrahim, general manager of Grand Entree. "On weekends, we are almost completely booked and we are seeing a lot of demand. Depending on the number of bookings, we may extend our sadhya bookings through to a few weeks in September."
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Street Food in Karama has also seen a lot of demand. “We already have a lot of enquiries,” said manager Noushad. “Since we are one of the few that is beginning to serve the sadhya this weekend, we are expecting a full house.” However, most restaurants will begin serving from August 26 and continue through the long weekend.
What is Onam?
Onam is the annual harvest festival of the southern Indian state of Kerala and one of the highlights of the festival is the traditional feast served on banana leaf featuring up to 30 dishes in one meal. Usually eaten with hands while seated cross-legged on the floor, the sadhya is eaten in a particular order and finished off with the sweet, milky dessert called payasam. This year, Onam will fall on August 26, at the end of a ten-day festival.
150,000 sadhyas over 100,000 litres of payasam
The Lulu Group’s preparation is one of the most massive ones in the country. The group is catering more than 150,000 Onam sadhyas and over 100,000 litres of payasam across the GCC this year, according to V. Nandakumar, Director of Global Marketing and Communications.
"Demand has been very strong, with an excellent response to pre-bookings both in-store and online," he said. "This is undoubtedly one of the busiest periods for our kitchens across the region."
Preparations began weeks in advance. More than 100 expert chefs from across the group are working together under the culinary guidance of sadhya specialist Pazhayidom Mohanan Namboothiri and celebrity chef Suresh Pillai. To maintain authenticity, over 2,500 tonnes of fresh ingredients are being flown in from India on specially arranged charter flights.
According to Nandakumar, the payasam festival is a major highlight for the group. “It will feature more than 25 varieties, including mango, jackfruit, ghee, ada and wheat payasam and will run until August 30,” he said. “We also have a special range of Onam cakes, pastries, chips, ice creams and other festive favourites. People have already begin shopping for Onam across our locations”
Like an orchestra
Sumesh Govind, CEO of Paragon Group of Restaurants, said his team expects to serve 25,000 to 30,000 sadhyas across seven outlets.
For a crowd of 450 people, the kitchen uses more than 70kg of rice. Their staff spends about three to four hours to prepare the sadhya but cutting and pickling take another two to three hours and is usually done the previous day.
Muhammed Anees, head chef at Malabar Tiffin House compared the preparation of a sadhya to an orchestra. “There is real labour, slow cooking and lot of planning,” he said. “It’s less like preparing a meal and more like conducting an orchestra.”
He said that with over one million Keralites living in UAE, the demand for Onam sadya is extremely strong every year. “This year, with the long weekend holiday, we are expecting an even bigger rush,” he said. “So far, we don’t have plans to extend the days of sadya but we will look at the demand and take a final decision.”
Increase in prices
On Thiruvonam day alone, the Karama branch of Calicut Paragon will serve around 4,000 people between 11.30am and 3.30 pm. The restaurant closes during dinner to give staff time off.
"Lot of multinationals enjoy Onam as much as Malayalis in the UAE," he said. "The whole world comes to our restaurants to enjoy the feast including Koreans, Japanese, Europeans, Americans all come. They have even learned to eat with their hands."
However, he added that this year, restaurants are facing higher costs.
"The price of vegetables has increased," Sumesh said. "Banana leaf prices have gone up 35 to 40 per cent."
The price rise is linked to the regional conflict, which has disrupted supply chains and pushed up the cost of fresh produce and other essentials.
