मटण आणि भाकरी
Hand-patted millet bhakri, hot off the chul, next to a bowl of gavran mutton rassa — the meal Maharashtra grew up on.
In Maharashtra, mutton is rarely eaten alone. It arrives beside a stack of bhakri — the coarse, hand-patted flatbread made from jowar or bajra that has fed the state's farmers, wrestlers and families for generations. The pairing is not an accident. A rich, oily gavran mutton rassa needs something with body to carry it, and soft wheat roti simply cannot. Bhakri, dense and slightly crumbly, tears into sturdy pieces that scoop up the thick rassa without falling apart. The nutty, roasted flavour of the millet also cuts through the fat of the mutton, so each bite resets your palate for the next.
There is a ritual to it too. You break the bhakri with your fingers, press a warm piece flat, lay on a chunk of mutton and a little rassa, and eat with your hand. It is unhurried, honest food — the kind that makes people order "aik bhakri अजून" (one more bhakri) long after they meant to stop.
Making a good bhakri is harder than it looks — the millet flour has no gluten to hold it together, so it must be patted into a round by hand, with water and pressure alone, and cooked at just the right heat so it puffs without cracking. At Hotel Chul we do not press bhakri on a machine or stack them in advance. Each one is shaped to order and roasted on the chul, our traditional earthen stove, so it reaches your table hot, with the faint smoky char that only a live flame gives.
Order it with our gavran mutton rassa, mutton sukka, or a mutton thali and you have the complete chulivarche jevan — clay-pot mutton on one side, fresh bhakri on the other, a wedge of raw onion and a lick of thecha to finish. In the winter we run bajra bhakri, which is warmer and heavier; the rest of the year, jowar. Vegetarians love it just as much with our shevga handi.
हाताने थापलेली गरम भाकरी आणि मातीच्या हंडीतले गावरान मटण — हेच तर खरे चुलीवरचे जेवण.
"Hand-patted hot bhakri and gavran mutton from a clay handi — this is what true chulivarche jevan means."
Jalna Road, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad). Open every day 11 AM – 11:30 PM.
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Bhakri is an unleavened Maharashtrian flatbread patted by hand from jowar (sorghum) or bajra (pearl millet) flour and roasted on a hot tawa or directly over the chul. It is coarse, nutty and sturdy — which is exactly why it pairs so well with rich gavran mutton rassa. Where a soft roti tears and goes limp in gravy, a bhakri holds its structure and scoops up the thick, spiced rassa. Tearing a piece of hot bhakri, wrapping it around a chunk of mutton and a spoon of rassa is, for most of Maharashtra, the definition of a satisfying meal.
Bhakri at Hotel Chul is ₹35 per piece (price fetched live from our kitchen menu). Most guests order it two or three to a plate alongside a half or full mutton handi. Prices for the mutton itself are shown on each dish page and our full menu.
Yes. We make both jowar (sorghum) bhakri and, in the cooler months, bajra (pearl millet) bhakri — bajra is warming and traditionally eaten in winter. Both are patted fresh to order, never pre-made, so every bhakri reaches your table hot. Ask our staff which grain is running that day.
Jowar and bajra are naturally gluten-free millets, so bhakri made purely from them contains no wheat. It is high in fibre and slow-digesting, which is one reason it has been a staple of rural Maharashtrian diets for centuries. Note that our kitchen also handles wheat, so we cannot guarantee a zero-contact gluten-free preparation.
Hotel Chul is on Jalna Road near Cambridge School in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), open every day 11 AM–11:30 PM. We are a chulivarche jevan restaurant — everything is cooked on a real earthen stove — which is why our mutton-and-bhakri plate tastes the way it did in a village kitchen. Call or WhatsApp +91 7038 87 67 67 to reserve or order.