Your ultimate guide to India

For years, Chaitanya Muppala, founder of Manam Chocolate, admittedly believed great chocolate belonged to Europe. ‘Good chocolate was always imported,’ he says. ‘The kind family brought back from abroad and rationed like treasure.’ I’ve hoarded enough boxes of Godiva chocolate as a child to know exactly what he’s on about.  The ‘eureka moment’ came during lockdown. Sure, growing up around premium mithai (his family runs Almond House, Hyderabad’s beloved sweets institution) had already sharpened his palate. But somewhere along the way, Chaitanya went full Charlie Bucket and vanished into the world of cacao, including all the fiddly and necessary bits: farming, fermentation, roasting, tempering, pastry, dessert, the whole rabbit hole. And the deeper he went, the more he realised Indian cacao had been massively underestimated. ‘We didn’t need to copy Europe,’ he says. ‘Indian chocolate could have its own thing going on.’ That little obsession has snowballed into a mini chocolate empire: there’s Manam Karkhana in Hyderabad, a store in Delhi, and enough expansion plans to keep his calendar looking mildly terrifying. Naturally, this also means he now eats dessert with the focus of someone silently auditing cocoa percentages. Which makes him exactly the person you want recommending chocolate desserts across India. Thankfully, none of these picks rely on gold leaf or unnecessary theatrics. They made the cut for the right reasons: balance, texture, and that rare ability to occupy brain space long after the meal is over. 

As someone minted in the country’s fanciest kitchens, celebrity chef Kunal Kapur was dead sure he’d seen it all fairly early: the best of Indian food, neatly plated, exhaustively mastered, made from the freshest ingredients in the shiniest cookware. And then he went and did the one thing fine-dining can’t emulate. He travelled. And I mean, really travelled. ‘The second you step out of the slicker parts of India, it’s a sort of rude awakening. Whatever we’re serving at pricey restaurants is literally a fraction of what Indian food really is,’ he admits, not rueful at all. ‘You think you know everything and then wham. A reality check hits you in the face.’ Fortunately the MasterChef India judge wasn’t (and still isn’t) precious about getting his hands dirty. And it’s because he temporarily ditched white tablecloths for dusty bylanes and roadside carts that he was able to find inspiration for his restaurant Pincode that first opened in Select Citywalk Mall, Saket (now closed). Today, the brand is present in Indore, Mohali, Bengaluru, and now in Goa, with the recently-opened Pincode Bungalow. ‘What really sets some of these places apart is that they look makeshift but have actually been around for decades,’ he says. ‘I call them one-dish wonders. Their menu’s tiny but the one thing they do, they do so well that there’s no point even trying to compete.’ At Pincode, he’s been trying to bring in some of that flavour into the regional Indian dishes, which are all inspired by his travels and childhood. ‘I didn’t want to relegate the best food I’ve ever had to a memory in my head. Everyone should get a chance to have a taste,’ he says.  But the real good stuff still lives where it always has: in the no-frills spots dotted across India. Here are the ones he keeps going back to. 

As it happens, it was nihari that was Chef Manish Mehrotra’s gateway drug into the big, bad world of non-vegetarian food. It’s a detail that feels faintly implausible when you remember that he grew up vegetarian – before spending an astonishing, career-defining two decades shaping the world-famous Indian Accent.  And yet – it’s the slow-cooked curry, not butter chicken or biryani, that makes him weak in the knees. Traditionally very spicy and made with beef or mutton shank, Manish first tasted it as a teenager in Lucknow and later rediscovered it in Delhi.  ‘Funnily enough, since I grew up vegetarian in Patna, I couldn’t even tell a mutton curry from nihari at first,’ he says, amused. ‘All I wanted was to get my hands on non-vegetarian food. Nihari just happened to win the jackpot.’ This tracks with the chef’s latest opening: Nisaba at Sunder Nursery, his very first gig as a chef-owner. Manish was, admittedly, the man who introduced the world to blue cheese naans and daulat ki chaat, but tags like ‘modern Indian’ and ‘inventive’ have dogged him too long. At Nisaba, he’s ready to move on, and he’s turned his attention to what he loves best: street food and regional dishes from the country’s bylanes.  Manish – like a true connoisseur – has tracked down all the nihari joints in Delhi. Some are underrated, some perhaps overrated; some incredibly refined, and some located in neighbourhoods you may not have heard of. But the best ones all have one thing in common: the nihari is mouthwateringly good. Simmered overnight, packed with spice, melt-in-your-mouth, and best enjoyed with a khamiri roti. And as Manish says, it’s the wobbly, gelatinous texture where the magic lies.  His recommendations come with a word of caution: the hole-in-the-wall spots aren’t for the faint-hearted. ‘Don’t shovel it down like it’s a full meal,’ he warns. ‘With all that spice and oil, your stomach will protest.’ And with that, here’s Manish’s guide to where you’ll find the very best nihari in the city.

Here's a fun fact about Mumbai, despite the richy-rich reputation. The city rewards you at every price point for food, if you know where to look. And who better to prove that than someone whose entire career is built on precision and taste? Nooresha Kably is the city's official expert on all things Japanese cuisine: literally. Like, appointed by the Japanese government as 'goodwill ambassador for the promotion of Japanese cuisine' official. Trained at the Tokyo Sushi Academy (on a whim, of all things), her restaurant Izumi in Bandra has done some pretty successful promoting, and sits comfortably at #12 on Condé Nast's Top 50 Restaurants of 2025. Her latest venture, Idoru, is one of the city's finest vinyl bars, with a unique spin on Japanese cocktails and bar snacks. So yes, obviously, she knows her food. But here's the thing – when I asked her for recommendations, she laughed and said, ‘I don't eat Japanese food too often on my time off.’  It turns out she eats across Mumbai, seriously and enthusiastically, from ₹550 thalis to 24-karat gold-plated khichidi. Here, ordered by how much they'll set one person each back, is where she's spending her time off duty.

Gluttonous street-style Punjabi food was something Chef Amninder Sandhu had sidestepped before first landing in Delhi in 2003, then as a trainee at the Taj. Slightly delicate stomach notwithstanding, it’s not like she’d had much of a chance to gorge herself silly on chhole bhature and street-side kebabs anyway, what with her adolescent years being spent in Northeast India.  It would be her five-star hotel colleagues, of all people, who’d end up driving her nuts about the gloriously tiny food spots of OG Dilli, with queues that rivalled grand festivals. Eventually, Amninder gave in. She realised why the staff ceaselessly waxed poetic – and she guarantees that soon, you will, too. Today, as she experiments with Punjabi dishes at her restaurants Bawri and Kikli, it’s these old favourites that remain her secret pleasures, and yes, she’s willing to spill the addresses. 

Chef Rijul Gulati’s hospitality knows no bounds. He is fun. Full of josh. And of course, a massive foodie. In other words, he’s the quintessential Delhi Boy. So you might understand my slightly prejudiced (I’m a Mumbaikar) surprise when I notice there is zero arrogance in the man when he chats to me about the changing currents in the culinary world and what Indian Accent Mumbai has in store. Despite finding towering success at a relatively young age, Rijul is still fuelled purely by passion and expertise. The picture of humility. There is absolutely zero room for Delhi tropes here.  But, at the risk of invoking a cliché, you can take the boy out of Delhi, but you can’t take Delhi out of the boy. After nearly a decade at Indian Accent in the capital, Rijul moved to Mumbai in 2023 to helm the restaurant’s brand new NMACC outpost. Mumbai can’t ever replace home, but it’s come with its own sense of community. Celebrity chefs Prateek Sadhu (NAAR) and Varun Totlani (Masque) are ‘dear brothers’, he says, while he remains tight with Manish Mehrotra, founding chef of Indian Accent, as well as Himanshu Saini of Michelin-starred Trèsind Studio fame.  But where does he go when the Delhi foodie in him starts to itch? ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport,’ he says with a grin. Jokes apart, in the three years he’s been in Mumbai – a city not always known for getting North Indian food right – he’s found a handful of places that come close. Here’s his guide to Punjabi comfort classics in Mumbai. 

Chef Anahita Dhondy didn’t imagine she’d be running SodaBottleOpenerWala at 23. That decision – an audacious one by restaurateur AD Singh – dropped her straight into a high-pressure kitchen when most people her age were still figuring out their lives. And it worked. Even though the restaurant has since shuttered, Anahita’s name is still irrevocably tied to Parsi food in Delhi.  When she first stepped into a professional kitchen at 18, her goals were modest: survive the grind, don’t get yelled at too much, and get through service. Somewhere between her internships at Taj Delhi, a stint at Le Cordon Bleu in London, and SodaBottleOpenerWala, that modest need to survive blossomed into the very real ambition to succeed.  ‘The only reason Chef Saby (Sabyasachi Gorai – the key visionary behind SodaBottleOpenerWala) trusted me was because he saw I could command a kitchen at that age. He hadn’t really seen that very often, in men or women,’ she recalls. Though of course it helped that she was also the only one in the room who actually knew how to cook Parsi food. Anahita’s rise on Delhi’s food and bev scene, though, also coincided with a watershed moment for young women carving out a space for themselves in the culinary landscape. They had few women to look up to – celebrity chef Ritu Dalmia being one of them. ‘We were all figuring it out as we went,’ Anahita says of that time.  Things are different now. Things are looking up. Very many of the best restaurants in Delhi are women-led, and it’s hardly surprising that when Anahita eats out, she gravitates towards them. Here’s a guide to her favourites. 

Editor’s note: This list was compiled just as a decade-long boom in chef-led restaurants began to cement itself as part of the India travel experience. It’s no secret we love our food, and some names here are the stuff of celebrity status. The kind of innovation happening at these spots, we guarantee, makes them solid footstops if you want to get a hang of the conversations happening in India’s top elite kitchens. Or… simply want to pig out. Fear not – the spots here haven't earned their name through fruit caviar that adds nothing to a dish and drinks topped with fancy foam. No, these are passionate chefs interested in anything but playing it safe. Each of these menus feels like a note from their personal diary.  It doesn’t stop at a chef’s reputation. India’s got the privilege of telling homegrown stories from the narrow lanes of coastal towns to the swanky districts of metropolitan cities, and these restaurants turn food into highly skilled – and gobsmackingly delicious – storytelling. The other cuisines on the list hold up their ground with the quality of their ingredients, some grown directly on attached farms or flown in specially from abroad – that’s how much care goes into them.  From high-concept plates to ingredient-driven dishes, we've rounded up the kitchens across India where the chef's vision is the not-so-secret ingredient. 

When I first moved to Bengaluru, everyone tried to induct me into something different. Beer culture. Karaoke culture. ‘Bro-you-have-to-try-this-washbasin-shot’ culture. And of course, the city’s favourite answer to all life problems: Bob’s Bar. I spent months hopping from cheap bars with plastic chairs to very serious cocktail labs, and somewhere along the way, I realised Bengaluru has a bar for every version of you: the broke version, the romantic version, the brooding ‘I need whiskey and silence’ version, the ‘let me wear something shiny tonight’ version. Though Bob’s will live on in beloved infamy because it feels like home, Bengaluru’s bar scene is admittedly thriving, with a handful of bars having ridden the frenzy of the launch phase to a genuine, long-lived popularity. Some feel newish but full of possibility. Others take cocktails so seriously you find yourself sitting a bit straighter in your chair. Yet others will have you singing Hey Jude with strangers over a plate of paneer chilli.  Here’s my list of bars that genuinely made me stay a little longer than I planned. Trust me, there’s so much more to drinking in this city than you think.

When it comes to seafood, you’re going to have to forget the beach-shack stereotype. Goa’s most rewarding fish thalis aren’t found by the sea, but are tucked away in quiet villages, family-run kitchens, and unassuming dining rooms where lunch is a ritual, and culinary pride runs deep. From time-honoured classics to contemporary interpretations, these are the places that locals swear by and the ones that remind you that real Goan flavours are simmered slowly and served with heart.  

Sushi in Bengaluru used to be a trust exercise ten years ago. You’d order it half-expecting disappointment, the way you brace for traffic on Outer Ring Road, but somewhere along the way, the restaurants in the city pulled up their socks. Now, there are chefs quietly perfecting their rolls, slicing fish with calm precision, and plating maki that holds its shape even when you can’t grip your chopsticks right. What makes Bengaluru’s sushi scene work is that it's evolved quietly and assuredly – which means that what you're getting is rolls prepared with genuine care, not dishes created specifically for Instagram. The result is sushi that doesn’t pretend to be totally authentic, but isn’t too desi, either. And after witnessing the ups and downs of Japanese cuisine in the city, I can safely say that this guide's covered pretty much all the places that won't let you down. 

Jaipur’s risen on the food and bev scene like a shining star. Truly world class bars and restaurants have unfurled menus with concepts Jaipur was maybe a stranger to – fusion food, clarified cocktails, avocado on everything, and on and on you go. It's fun to flirt with the up and coming, but they can't overshadow the fact that Jaipur's food scene was frolicking long before the new-age haunts rolled in.  Jaipur's food's best summed up in three words: spicy, indulgent, and messy. There are classics you can't go without – onion kachori, laal maans – but other items too, served at legacy shops in the bazaars of the walled city, just beckoning you in with the smell of fried goodies wafting out. The spots on this list are places every Jaipur local knows, and has frequented over the past several decades with their parents, friends, and now, their children. With time, they've practically become hallmarks.  So come on, be the eager beaver of the trip – you'd be missing out if you don't go to at least half the places on this list if you're in J-Town.

Editor’s note: Famous for the Golden Temple and historic sites like Jallianwalla Bagh, Amritsar’s food’s best sampled in the streets, and boy, is there a lot. This guide helps you sort out what and how much to get at each place. Be ready for crowds – the small talk here is endearing, and half the experience. Amritsar is a holy city. Ask any local and they'll tell you the food here has its own kind of devotion going on. Chefs will happily tell you it's the city's spiritual energy blessing every dish, but we'd argue it's just decades of stubborn pride in getting the recipe right. Many of these places have been run by the same families for generations, and they're not showing signs of slowing down… judging by the walls plastered with photos of the celebrities who've stopped by. The city has no shortage of delectable options, which is exactly the problem. Where do you even start? We've done the narrowing down for you: here are the spots worth your appetite beyond the Golden Temple's langar (which, yes, remains unbeatable). The best places to eat in Amritsar at a glance: The best fish: Makhan Fish and Chicken Corner The best chaat: Brijwasi Chat Bhandar The best kulcha: Ram Patty Kulcha The best dessert: A-One Kulfa

Yes, the biryani in Hyderabad is legendary. But Hyderabad's dining scene is growing up. From hole-in-the-wall izakayas to refined Cantonese kitchens, moonlit rooftop bars to neighbourhood trattorias that feel like they've been transplanted from a Roman backstreet, the city's appetite for the new and the nuanced has never been keener than now.  This guide rounds up some of the best local and refined haunts, serving everything from craft cocktails and bar snacks to full-blown tasting menus, so you can eat your way through Hyderabad without once reaching for the dum pot… even if that isn’t a recommendation.

Missed a morning darshini? Craving something a little more leisurely? Bengaluru’s brunch scene has evolved in multiple directions, from old-school institutions serving up the best dosa to ambitious new openings putting their own spin on the weekend meal. Legacy chefs and innovative concepts are snapping up restaurant spaces with almost the same speed as locals swearing by their favourite brunch spots. Whether you’re after a lazy Sunday brunch with friends, a boozy afternoon, a long family meal or simply a very good excuse to skip lunch altogether, the city has something for every mood. Expect everything from South Indian staples and hearty all-day breakfasts to lavish buffets, inventive plates and cocktails that make a strong case for extending brunch well into the evening. Also read: The best cafés in Bengaluru So, where should you actually go? We’ve rounded up the best brunches in Bengaluru, including reliable favourites and newer spots worth putting on your weekend radar. Come hungry, leave happy. The best brunch restaurants in Bengaluru at a glance Best alfresco brunch: Trippy Goat Best boozy brunch: Mannheim Craft Brewery Best baked goods: BrezelHaus

Hyderabad was pretty well known for sticking it out for tea over coffee for many, many years. Coffee tried for ages to elbow its way into the landscape but failed miserably – impressive, actually, given that the city sits so close to Karnataka, which produces most of the coffee in India. But all that changed in the 2000s. The big IT boom brought hordes of caffeine-crazed folks to town, and back then, there was only the humble-but-sturdy Café Coffee Day that valiantly kept up with the demand. Coffee became a main character after playing side fiddle to tea for years, and today, it’s earned loyalty from the cityfolk in its own right – there’s a coffee shop hawking specialty coffee every hundred metres as a testament to that fact. The city’s finally grown snobbish about good coffee, and about time, I say.  The cafés themselves are rather a lot more avant-garde than could be expected from a city that appears, on the outset, as sleepy and laid-back as Hyderabad. In recent years, I’ve seen the rise of cosy nooks that recall the misty hills of their owners’ homelands, and I’ve seen minimalist micro-roasters with wonderfully inventive menus that challenge how we drink our daily coffee. I’ve cantered through them all, and this guide covers the best of the lot. 

Goa and drinking go hand-in-hand. Hell, Goa and binge-drinking go hand-in-hand, even, if I’m perfectly honest. There’s no better way to spend time in the land of do nothing than sampling some great alcohol – whether that’s local-made People’s beer, fancy cocktail bars that consistently end up bagging top spots in global rankings, or even the lethal local cashew liquor called feni, which is strong enough to floor a horse.  And yes, Goa’s drinking scene had, at one point, coalesced into a fairy-lit shack slash EDM strip situation. That’s a thing of the past; the best bars are now housed inside converted garages, old Portuguese homes, and beachfront sheds with better back bars than most big-city hotels. And this guide, compiled by a local who loves tipple, is your entry point into navigating the good from the bad from the ugly.  How did we rank these bars? One thing we didn’t do is rank this list by Instagram followers. Every bar here has earned its spot, because it does one thing brilliantly, whether that's a 300-strong rum collection, a vacuum-tube sound system playing 1960s vinyl, or simply the best chorizo-jam toast on the coast. I drank (responsibly… mostly) across North and South Goa (helps that I’m a local), returning to the places that held up on a quiet Tuesday as well as a heaving Saturday. And these are deliberately mixed up: the internationally ranked cocktail bars putting Goa on Asia's 50 Best lists sit alongside unmarked speakeasies you'll need a DM to enter, and old-school taverns that were pouring feni before ‘mixology’ was a word anyone here used. Difficult to find? Worth the detour? I’ve got you covered.  The best bars in Goa at a glance For a sailor's-den night out: Bar Outrigger, Dona Paula For committed audiophiles: For The Record, Panjim For the ‘five-star dive bar’ crowd: Boilermaker, SiolimFor those who like a secret: Mofo, South Goa