Sreetama Basu

Brunch is great, but breakfast? Breakfast is responsible. Breakfast has places to be. After all, there’s something optimistic about breakfast outings. You’re meeting people at the start of the day, when everything still feels possible, and the promise of productivity has not yet betrayed you. Delhi folks, though, would balk at the concept of calling this a simple eggs-and-bacon situation. For some, breakfast on Sundays warrants a trek to Old Delhi for nihari and khameeri roti. Others will make a beeline for the bougie avocado-sourdough affair in Khan Market. Others still may want to deem the whole expedition brunch and go the whole hog, with the intention of skipping lunch. Honestly, we respect the commitment. So, if you’re looking for the best breakfasts in Delhi, you’ve come to the right place. This guide rounds up the best breakfast places in Delhi, from old-school institutions and neighbourhood favourites to cafés worth getting out of bed for. There are parathas, puris, dosas, eggs, bakery breakfasts and plenty of strong arguments for ordering one more thing for the table. And because breakfast is rarely just breakfast in Delhi, there’s plenty to do once you’ve cleared your plate. Wander through Old Delhi with our Chandni Chowk neighbourhood guide, or continue your food crawl with our picks of the best kebabs in Delhi and best pizza in Delhi.  For now, though, start with breakfast. In this guide, there’s a little bit of everything for everyone.

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. 

One dish should get you through the door: the hot honey chicken waffle. It's probably the reason most regulars keep coming back. Close behind it – and I’ll stand on this hill for as long as it takes – is the burrata eggplant cannoli, which sounds wrong only on paper. It’s delicious. Blanca is at its best, though, with a section called Sweet Start. Dessert is top priority around here. The tiramisu croissant is the standout: a best-of-both-worlds situation that makes you wonder why more places aren't doing this. Work your way through the rest of the section too: it's all worth it. The space itself is spread across two floors just off Dhan Mill compound in Chhattarpur market; it leans into a European-meets-boho aesthetic, all calm cream-white interiors with both indoor and outdoor seating. It's the kind of place that works for a first date just as easily as a lazy Sunday with friends. The fact that it occasionally moonlights as a coffee rave venue feels almost at odds with its elegant exteriors. Not to mention: Dhan Mill’s full of cool stores, galleries and other cafés. Treat Blanca like your entry; there’s more than enough to walk off the stuffiness of every last bite.  

Melt House has got two floors with Parisian bistro vibes downstairs, terrace overlooking GK2's M Block market upstairs. As M Block as it gets. But if, like me, you grew up thinking grilled cheese meant processed Amul between supermarket bread, Melt House is long-overdue news. It's done a flip and a backflip for Delhi's now booming sandwich scene. At the same time, their breakfast menu is surprisingly pretty expansive. A full English breakfast, full American breakfast, your usual sourdough and egg favourites, and lovely fluffy pancakes. But you know what? The chettinad chicken benedict is the thing to order. The sandwich hits are obvious: piri piri chicken cheesesteak, croque madame with pork ham, fried chicken grilled cheese. Order any of them and you'll be fine. What catches you off guard is how strong the vegetarian section also is – the shroom bulgogi melt and 4-cheese melt, once you’ve had them, are difficult to skip again. Pizzas are great too. The margherita with cranberry chutney is even weirder than it sounds, because it works like a charm. The hot honey pepperoni and shrimp scampi keep the momentum going.

Kunal Kapur has spent enough years on your TV screen judging other people's food that it's easy to forget he's also spent decades cooking it across continents with a Michelin nod picked up somewhere along the way in Abu Dhabi.  The name of Pincode, his restaurant, isn't a marketing department's idea of quirky. Kapur's grandmother used to painstakingly get the pincode right on every letter she sent to family scattered across the country, because a wrong digit meant a lost letter. Launched in January 2023, the restaurant borrows that same logic: get the coordinates right, and the food (and the memory attached to it) reaches exactly where it's supposed to. The menu wanders the country with a few detours that feel more playful than necessary: chaat hummus and dhokla chaat sit somewhere between homage and gimmick, and falooda shows up because, well, why wouldn't it. But the kitchen is clearly more confident in certain other spots. Every server pushed the pressure cooker chicken curry, the malai prawns, the lamb seekh tawa masala and the Old Delhi-style bread pudding with the sort of conviction that made saying no feel rude, so we didn't. The bread pudding earns the hype. It’s more or less a house signature. The real find, though, was the chicken curry momos. It’s Pincode's spin on the jhol momo. A curry this good is allowed to hog the plate. The dakkahni mushroom, stuffed with green peas and cheese, plays a similar game: charred and savoury on the outside, rich within.  Nostalgia

After my multiple visits to Pondicherry and eating my way around the town, I’ve got to say Chez Artisan stands out. Located on Mission Street, one of the city’s most tourist-heavy stretches, the place could easily have leaned into the town's formula of colonial nostalgia and Instagram-friendly aesthetics. But it takes a different route.  Touted as Pondicherry's first chef-owned, chef-driven Euro-Asian restaurant, the space is built around the vision of Chef Kathiron, who remains very much at the centre of the operation – that’s not something that can be said very often. In a town overloaded with charming cafes and heritage bungalows where the ambience often trumps over food, restaurants built around a chef's personal culinary identity remain rare. For years, Pondicherry's food scene has largely revolved around two main ideas, the tourist-facing French nostalgia and traditional Tamil or Franco-Tamil cooking. Chez Artizan takes a third path which not many restaurants in the town have dared to do. The menu moves effortlessly between ramen, burrata bowls, risottos, burgers, fresh pasta, artisanal sandwiches, salads, kombucha and cold-pressed juices. It's neither conventionally French nor rooted in South Indian tradition.  What also caught my attention is the kitchen's commitment to seasonal produce and scratch cooking. Commercial and store-bought products have no place here.The pestos, pasta sauces, burger patties, soup stocks and accompaniments are all made in-house. If a key in

This Gurugram export has settled comfortably into Malcha Marg, and the minimalist room, all clean lines and generous natural light, does exactly what it should: get the hell out of the food's way. In Delhi, it turns out that’s an easy way to gain city-wide fame, as far as breakfast goes. Fig at Malcha runs a tight conscious-eating brief (local farms, GMO-free meat, cage-free eggs, daily-baked bread and pastries), which is a naturally great way to start your morning. Begin with the salmon carpaccio – cured well, plated beautifully, gone fast. The eggs benedict earns its signature-dish status. Later in the day, the shepherd's pie and prawn ceviche with avocado are absolutely worth the detour. And the rice paper rolls with oriental veg are fine, though the fact that they actually taste like fresh vegetables does a lot as a selling point in Delhi. The specialty coffee? It’s had its moment on Instagram, and that’s not because it’s some aesthetic creme de la mumbo jumbo. It's really good, so give it a shot.