Vadakara stands in what was once Kadathanad, a small principality on the North Malabar coast, and the town has never wanted for history. A few kilometres inland is Lokanarkavu, the temple whose Bhagavathy was the family deity of Thacholi Othenan — the warrior at the heart of the Vadakkan Pattukal, the Northern Ballads that gave Kerala the figure of Unniyarcha and gave Kadathanad its long reputation for kalaripayattu. This coast traded with everyone who came to it: Arab merchants, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French at Mahe a short way up the shore, and the British after them. In the closing decades of the eighteenth century the armies of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan swept through Malabar, and households across the region scattered, returned and rebuilt. Thazhe Angadi — the lower market — is where a great deal of that traffic changed hands.

Every one of those layers left furniture behind. It is the plain reason a shop like ours can stand here at all: this stretch of coast has been accumulating other people's belongings for a very long time, and someone has to know what they are worth keeping.

Our journey began in 1988, when our founder, Mr. A. Majeed, established Malabar Antique at Thazhe Angadi in Vadakara, in Malabar's storied trading heartland. Guided by a deep respect for North Kerala's rich woodworking traditions and an uncompromising eye for authentic joinery, Mr. Majeed set out with a clear, enduring conviction: to preserve the soul, weight, and timeless beauty of handcrafted solid wood furniture. Under his stewardship, we became known for recognising seasoned Malabar teak and rich rosewood wherever it still survived — in old houses being emptied, in shuttered shops, in families parting with what they could no longer keep — and for bringing those heirloom pieces back into the light.