Aad & Co By Chef Pillai Kochi — Restaurant in Panampilly Nagar

We visited Aad & Co for the much-hyped “Celebrati Chef Glam.” First of all, credit where it’s due—the quality of the meat they use is excellent. 🥩 The cuts were spot on, tender, and perfectly cooked. Staff was also helpful and friendly, which we appreciated.

Now, about the dishes we tried:

Mutton leg soup – This one really missed the mark. I could hardly taste the mutton. Instead, the overpowering flavors of mint and garlic dominated, and the soup honestly reminded me of Maggi noodle soup 🥲.

Mutton brain – Surprisingly good! I liked the consistency and the mild touch of soy sauce.

Kizhi – Nothing special. Felt very average.

Highway Kandhari roast – This was a full-on spice bomb. 🔥 I usually handle spice well, but here I was literally sweating buckets 😬. Sadly, I didn’t taste any kandhari chili flavor—it just felt like cheap pachamulak.

Breads – We tried the Sri Lankan bread and another “special” bread. Both were a big letdown. Skip these and just go with porotta, which was way better.

Overall, the experience was pretty mediocre. The chef nailed the quality of meat and cuts, but failed to deliver with the flavors and balance across the menu.

❌ Not recommending—not even for a one-time experience. In Kochi, there are far better options. Multi-cuisine spots like Arippa or Ceylon offer tastier food and a much better overall experience at a...

Our Experience // While the brand promises a signature mutton-centric experience backed by Chef Pillai's stellar reputation, our recent team lunch left much to be desired.

We visited expecting the brilliance associated with the Chef Pillai name — especially after a great experience at United Coconut, where we had earlier spent around ₹12,000 for a memorable team lunch.

Unfortunately, at Aad & Co, none of the dishes lived up to the hype: The Aadu Pollichath lacked depth and flavor.

Manga curry, surprisingly listed as a dish, felt like a basic side from a regular oonu meal.

-E ven the simple Idiyappam was hard and poorly made.

The lemon tea too was below average , don't know the lemon sugar tea powder combo was meased, a disappointment from start to finish.

One guy was assigned to kill eechas there, not expecting from a brand 🫠

This experience echoes what many locals are now saying — the quality at Aad & Co just doesn't match the expectations set by the name on the board.

As Chef Pillai’s brand expands, consistency seems to be slipping.

What once stood for culinary innovation and taste now risks becoming just another name.

Chef Pillai — we respect your legacy. Please help preserve the standard that made your...

Went here with a lot of expectations given the Chef Pillai brand, but was utterly disappointed. We ordered the brain fry, mutton cutlet, mutton stew, mutton kurma, porotta and puttu. Brain fry was the only good dish of the lot, small portion but flavored well. However, post that, the dominos started to fall. The mutton cutlet was bang average for 185 bucks. The stew and kurma had no flavor and completely watered down. The mutton was not super tender, and being a place that serves mutton exclusively you would expect otherwise. Porotta was cold and felt like it was a frozen ready to heat one. When the manager came by to ask us how the dishes were, we expressed our displeasure. He offered to replace the kurma with mutton chaps which he said was their best seller. Yet another watered down dish with 10% extra flavor to that of the kurma. Another disappointment again. Finally we decided to end with dessert and ordered gulab jamun. Honestly, we have had better gulab jamun from a tin. Cold, hard and bad way to end the meal. Overall a really bad experience and will not be visiting again. This is not a chef Pillai experience in any regard and seems like a...