BANANA LEAF Kovalam Pure Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in Kerala

Me and my partner visited this restaurant several times during our stay at Kovalam beach in March 2023. We were disappointed with other restaurants in the area that were expensive and left us feeling ill, and stumbled upon this gem and came back for breakfast and dinner everyday. The location is a few minutes walk down the alleyways away from the beachfront so it is a little less humid and cooler, and more peaceful. The ambience is more laidback and the restaurant is next to a little protected temple. The staff here are very friendly and polite, and the prices are a lot more affordable than the beachfront restaurants. The food is freshly prepared in a very clean environment (you can see into the kitchen) and is very tasty. The ginger and lemon soda and masala tea is so nice. The pancakes and fresh fruit salads are great too. Thank you, Heather & Phill...

WASTE OF MONEY. We visited this place after looking at positive reviews and photos of 3 layered sandwich and pizza with typical overn char. So we ordered Paneer pizza, sandwich, latkes and banana fry crepes. The paneer pizza was a sad mess: 2 inch big paneer slices, excessive blanket of tasteless cheese - it was just heated in a pan, not even a hot air oven. Then the sandwich was only grated vegetables with some masala - single layer. The banana fry crepe turned out to be only a banana crepe (not even chocolate sauce) - just banana and chocolate crepe. The latkes was just just hash browns - not latkes.

We had shown pictures of the pizza and sandwich in their maps listing to the server, he never clarified that they didn't have proper equipment to prepare these items.

Wasted over 900 rs...

During our stay we went to many different restaurants but banana leaf was by far the best. We came back three times and each time the food, service and atmosphere were all perfect. Jo was by far the best waiter we’ve had during our whole stay! His attention to detail was very very good and he was very thorough. He remembered and made note of all requests made and made sure we were all happy with everything we received. We couldn’t think of any improvements that the banana leaf could make, apart from maybe getting cushions for the seats if we really had to think of...