SINGAPORE – Many of Madam Parameshvari Kulanthaivelu’s childhood hours were spent watching the chefs in her family’s restaurant as they worked.

From her perch on the second floor of the shophouse in Selegie, she watched them cutting and preparing vegetarian fare, including the multicoloured Deepavali sweets that filled the kitchen with hues of orange, yellow, beige and white.

Now at age 74, after retiring from a career in accounting, Madam Parameshvari is back at the family business helping her nephew run the now 100-year-old Ananda Bhavan Restaurant.

It is this spirit of pulling together to sustain the family business that has helped it reach its centenary, she told The Straits Times on July 20 before a dinner marking Ananda Bhavan’s entry into the Singapore Book of Records as the oldest Indian vegetarian restaurant in the country.

President Tharman Shanmugaratnam attended the dinner at the restaurant in Syed Alwi Road in Little India with his spouse, Ms Jane Ittogi. They dined with around 150 other guests, including members of the family, staff, business associates and community leaders.

There, it debuted a new centenary menu with popular dishes from over the years from various culinary traditions, including banana flower vadai, curry noodles with monkey head mushroom and portobello mushroom briyani.

The original restaurant, at Ellison Building in Selegie Road, was started by Madam Parameshvari’s father in 1924 and is now run by her nephew Viren Ettikan, 39.

The family lived above the restaurant, and one could always call out for ...