If you name your restaurant “Toddy Shop” some people will expect it to be a replica of toddy shops they know from Kerala in southern India, informal worker cafes that serve toddy, an alcoholic beverage made from freshly fermented coconut sap, and spicy dishes such as meen pollichathu, fish wrapped in banana leaf.

You won’t find either at Mischa Tropp’s Fitzroy version of a Keralan eating house. His Toddy Shop pays fond homage to these beloved food stands without getting bogged down in strictures of authenticity. There’s toddy, but it’s a Sri Lankan bottled brew. The fish will come, once the tiny kitchen is expanded.

I’m glad this cute bolthole is an ode to toddy shops rather than an attempt to replicate them, because it means I’m sitting here with a Toddy Colada, which spins a staple cocktail by shaking Kerala’s key flavours – coconut, lime, curry leaf, pineapple, toddy – and pouring them over ice. India is endlessly innovative, but even so, I don’t reckon I’d find this fun drink out the back of Kochi.

We’re in the space that previously housed grill bar Mono-XO, one that I remember fondly as the place pastry whiz (and now fireman) Pierre Roelofs ran dessert evenings almost 15 years ago.

It’s tiny: the kitchen fits one chef and when Toddy Shop opened in December, it was a chaotic crush of inner-city foodies who loved Tropp’s pop-ups and lockdown butter chicken, and southern Indian diners from all over, hungry for a taste of home.

Tropp cooked in a solo frenzy, serving 750 people over five days at one period, rather a lot for a 20-seat restaurant. It’s settled now: you can book and the feeling is energetic, not stressed. Service is well-drilled and friendly.

This is home-style food for sharing, spooned into stainless-steel trays with a focus on flavour and immediacy rather than show-off presentation.

Some dishes are toddy shop classics but many are home-style, either from Mischa Tropp’s mother or from aunties who taught him in Kerala.

Coconut and curry leaves are roasted to dark golden for the prawns theeyal, the base for a sauce sharpened with tamarind and eased with jaggery.

Cabbage is fried with curry leaves and turmeric to make the sweet, simple thoran.

Pork cubes are fried and fried and fried in their own fat until they dry to a firm, almost jerky-like texture, dense and peppery.

Boiled eggs are oozy treasures in rich onion-tomato gravy. Beetroot is cooked with ground mustard to make a perky pachadi. Polished red matta rice, fluffy and nutty, is perfect.

This is food for sharing, spooned into stainless-steel trays with a focus on flavour and immediacy rather than show-off presentation.

When I ate here, there were posters on the opposite side of the street saying, “Thank god for immigrants”. Of course, unless we’re First Nations, we are all immigrants here.

But I take it to mean, “thanks for diversity”, thanks for the waft of curry leaves down Smith Street and yes, thanks for Toddy Shop.