BENGALURU: Gandhada Gudi, the late sandalwood superstar Puneeth Rajkumar’s final film is set for a worldwide release later next week. But before the film hits theatres, restaurants across Bengaluru are offering fans the ‘taste of Gandhada Gudi’ through a special food festival courtesy of the Bruhat Bengaluru Hotels Association (BBHA). The two-day festival aims to offer fans in the city some of the late actor’s favourite dishes and honour his memory.
“Puneeth was a foodie. He used to frequent a lot of restaurants in the city, sampling their menus frequently,” says PC Rao, president of the BBHA. “He knew many hoteliers and chefs intimately and was truly a great friend to restaurateurs in the city,” Rao says adding that the idea was suggested by a few Puneeth fans, and the BBHA immediately decided to follow up on it. “It’s a small gesture from our side, and it helps us return the affection that he had for restaurateurs across the city,” shares Rao.
More than a dozen well-known restaurants across Bengaluru, from cafes such as The Rameshwaram Café, Coffee Confessions, and Iyengar’s oven fries to authentic south Indian restaurants such as Hallimane, Ragoo’s Kitchen, and more are offering specialised menus for the event, filled with some of the power star’s favourite dishes. These menus include both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options with notable dishes being masala dosae, mutton biriyani, shavige sabbakki payasa and more.
Hallimane in Malleshwaram in particular, is offering a special week-long vegetarian menu filled with Puneeth’s favourite dishes. “He was one of our frequent customers. While he couldn’t come into the restaurant most times to avoid being mobbed by his fans, he always sat in his car outside the restaurant and enjoyed our dishes,” says Raghavendra Sanjeev Rao, co-owner of Hallimane, adding that he expects an increase in customer footfall during the event.
A docudrama that aims to showcase the beauty of Karnataka, Gandhada Gudi is a spiritual successor to the 1973 film of the same name, which had Puneeth’s father, Rajkumar as the lead. The film is expected to hit theatres on Puneeth’s death anniversary on October 28 2022.