Eat your way across the map
स्वाद का नक्शा
Indian food changes with the fat, the grain and the water: wheat and dairy in Punjab, mustard oil and river fish in Bengal, coconut and tamarind along both coasts. Thirty-two dishes, what each one actually is, and the town to eat it in.
The whole thali
हर व्यंजन, और कहाँ खाएँ
Filter by region, by what it is, or by the state it belongs to. Every dish links to the towns where we would actually order it.
Non-vegDelhi
Tandoori chicken finished in a tomato gravy loosened with butter and cream, invented at Moti Mahal in Daryaganj by Punjabi cooks who came to Delhi after Partition. It is mild, faintly sweet, and meant to be eaten with naan or rumali roti rather than rice. Order half a plate and share.
VegetarianDelhi
Slow-cooked chickpeas darkened with tea and dry mango, served with a balloon of fried bhatura, raw onion, green chilli and pickle. Delhi eats it for breakfast, most famously at Sita Ram Diwan Chand in Paharganj and at the Kamla Nagar stalls, always with a glass of sweet or salted lassi.
Eat it inDelhiChandigarh
DrinkHimachal Pradesh
Orthodox green and black tea grown on the slopes below the Dhauladhar since 1849, with a light body and a woody, almost sweet finish. It carries a geographical indication tag and is picked from April to October. Buy it at the Palampur cooperative factories, an hour from Dharamshala, and drink it without milk.
Eat it inDharamshala & McLeod GanjBir Billing
DrinkJammu & Kashmir
Green tea brewed in a copper samovar with saffron, cinnamon bark and green cardamom, poured over crushed almonds and sweetened lightly with honey or sugar. Kashmiris drink it all day and press it on every guest. On a houseboat at Dal Lake or in a Gulmarg guesthouse it does the work of a fire.
Non-vegJammu & Kashmir
Kashmiri mutton braised slowly with dried Kashmiri chillies, fennel, dry ginger and ratanjot root, which gives the gravy its red colour without heat. The Pandit version uses no onion or garlic. It arrives midway through a wazwan feast, eaten with plain rice, and is best in Srinagar in the cold months.
Non-vegLadakh
A broth of hand-pulled wheat noodles with mutton or vegetables, spring onion and a little local chilli, ladled out steaming at 3500 metres. Ladakhis eat it as a full meal, often after skyu and before butter tea. The kitchens along Changspa Lane in Leh serve it from late morning until the shops close.
Eat it inLehNubra ValleyLamayuru
VegetarianPunjab
A layered maida bread stuffed with spiced potato, paneer or onion, slapped onto the wall of a tandoor and pulled out blistered, then crushed by hand and topped with white butter. It comes with chole and a sharp onion chutney. Eat it for breakfast in Amritsar after the morning prayers at the Golden Temple.
Eat it inAmritsar
VegetarianRajasthan
Rajasthan on one thali: hard wheat baatis baked in embers until they crack, drowned in ghee, eaten with panchmel dal of five lentils and churma crushed with jaggery. You break the baati by hand, spoon dal over it, then finish sweet. Eat it at a Jaipur haveli lunch or a Jodhpur family kitchen.
SweetRajasthan
A honeycomb disc of batter poured into hot ghee, soaked in sugar syrup and crowned with rabri and slivered pistachio. It appears for Teej and Raksha Bandhan in the monsoon months of July and August, when Johari Bazaar sweet shops in Jaipur stack it in towers and sell it by weight.
Non-vegRajasthan
A Rajput hunting-camp curry of mutton simmered with fistfuls of Mathania red chillies, yoghurt and browned garlic until the gravy runs deep red. It is fierce rather than sour, and is mopped up with bajra roti. Jodhpur and Udaipur kitchens still finish it with a live coal doused in ghee for smoke.
Street foodRajasthan
A flaky fried disc packed with spiced onion, gram flour and fennel, cracked open at the top and flooded with tamarind and mint chutney. It is a mid-morning habit in Jaipur, eaten standing at Rawat Misthan Bhandar near Sindhi Camp, and in Jodhpur outside the clock tower with a glass of masala chai.
Street foodUttar Pradesh
Tomatoes and boiled potato mashed on a hot iron pan with ginger, chilli and garam masala, then piled into a leaf bowl with crushed namkeen, coriander and a squeeze of lime. It is served scalding hot in Varanasi, most famously at the Godowlia and Dashashwamedh stalls after an evening at the ghats.
Non-vegUttar Pradesh
Minced mutton tenderised with raw papaya and bound with scores of ground spices, then griddled into patties soft enough to eat without teeth, which is exactly why Awadh created them. Fold one into a warm sheermal or ulta tawa paratha. Tunday Kababi in Lucknow has been serving them since 1905.
Eat it inLucknow
SweetGoa
A Goan pudding of coconut milk, egg yolk, flour, sugar and nutmeg, baked one thin layer at a time until it stands seven to sixteen layers deep. It takes hours and a patient cook. Bakeries in Margao and Panjim make it for Christmas, and it is served in slim wedges, often warm with ice cream.
Non-vegGoa
Chicken or lamb cooked in a masala of dry-roasted grated coconut, white poppy seeds, dried Goan chillies and a dozen spices ground on stone, dark and nutty rather than hot. Eat it with pao at a Panjim taverna, or alongside the everyday fish curry rice that keeps Goa going all year.
VegetarianGujarat
Gram-flour batter steamed into a soft yellow cake, cut into squares and finished with a tempering of mustard seed, sesame, curry leaf and slit green chilli, with grated coconut and coriander on top. It is a Gujarati breakfast and a teatime habit. Buy it warm at Ahmedabad farsan shops and eat it with green chutney.
Street foodMaharashtra
A spiced potato ball in gram-flour batter, fried and pushed into a soft pav with dry garlic chutney and a fried green chilli on the side. Ashok Vaidya sold the first one outside Dadar station in 1966. Mumbai still eats it standing up, between trains, and it costs less than a bus ticket.
Street foodMadhya Pradesh
Flattened rice steamed with turmeric, mustard and fennel, then heaped with sev, raw onion, pomegranate and a scatter of jeeravan masala, and eaten with a hot coil of jalebi on the same plate. Indore made it famous, but every Bhopal and Ujjain corner sells it from seven in the morning until the pans run dry.
VegetarianBihar
Wheat balls stuffed with roasted sattu, ajwain, mustard oil and pickle masala, baked over coal or cow-dung cakes until charred, cracked open and dipped in ghee. The chokha beside it is roasted brinjal, tomato and potato mashed with raw mustard oil and green chilli. Patna sells it by the roadside every evening.
SweetOdisha
Literally burnt cheese: fresh chhena beaten with sugar, semolina and cardamom, poured into a pan lined with sal leaves and baked slowly until the top caramelises almost black. It came from a Nayagarh sweet shop and is now Odisha's state dessert. Buy a wedge in Bhubaneswar or on the road to Puri.
Eat it inBhubaneswarPuriKonark
Street foodWest Bengal
A paratha fried with egg, wrapped around skewer-grilled kebab with sliced onion, green chilli and a squeeze of lime, then rolled in paper so you can walk with it. Nizam near New Market claims the invention in the 1930s. Park Street and Esplanade stalls sell them until well after midnight.
Eat it inKolkata
SweetWest Bengal
Balls of fresh chhena kneaded smooth and boiled in thin sugar syrup until they swell and turn spongy, served cold in their own liquor. Nobin Chandra Das is credited with the Bagbazar version in 1868, and Bengal won a geographical indication for it in 2017. Order two at any Kolkata sweet shop counter.
Eat it inKolkataShantiniketan
VegetarianAssam
The first course of an Assamese meal, cooked with kola khar, an alkaline water filtered through the burnt ashes of sun-dried banana peel. It is simmered with raw papaya, pulses or fish, tastes clean and faintly soapy, and is eaten with rice to open the stomach. Try it in Guwahati or on Majuli.
Eat it inGuwahati & KamakhyaMajuliKaziranga
Non-vegNagaland
Pork smoked over the kitchen hearth for weeks, then stewed with akhuni fermented soybean, bamboo shoot and raja mircha, the king chilli that once held the world heat record. It is pungent, deeply savoury and eaten with sticky rice. Try it at the Kohima morning market, or at the Hornbill Festival kitchens in Kisama every December.
Eat it inKohimaDzukou Valley
Street foodSikkim
Pleated dumplings of pork, chicken or vegetable steamed in a bamboo basket and served with a bowl of clear soup and a chutney of dalle khursani, the round Sikkimese chilli. Eat them on MG Marg in Gangtok or at a Darjeeling tea-house, and drink the soup between mouthfuls to keep the cold off.
Eat it inGangtokPellingDarjeeling
VegetarianKarnataka
A crisp dosa smeared inside with red chilli and garlic chutney before the potato palya goes in, folded and pushed off the griddle under a slick of ghee. Mylari in Mysuru makes a soft, butter-heavy version; Vidyarthi Bhavan in Bengaluru, open since 1943, makes the crisp one. Both come with coconut chutney.
VegetarianKerala
Fermented rice and coconut batter swirled in a deep appachatti so it sets lacy at the rim and spongy at the centre, served with a pale stew of vegetables or chicken in coconut milk, cinnamon, curry leaf and whole pepper. It is the Syrian Christian breakfast of Fort Kochi and the Kuttanad backwaters.
Eat it inKochiAlleppey (Alappuzha)Kumarakom
VegetarianKerala
A vegetarian feast of twenty or more dishes served on a plantain leaf in a fixed order, from pickle and pappadam at the tip to rice with parippu, sambar, avial, olan and thoran, ending in payasam. You eat with the right hand and fold the leaf towards you when done. Thrissur does it best at Onam.
Eat it inThrissurKochiAlleppey (Alappuzha)
Non-vegTamil Nadu
Chicken cooked in a Chettiar masala of black pepper, fennel, star anise and kalpasi, the dark stone flower lichen that gives it a smoky edge. It is peppery rather than chilli-hot. Eat it in the mansion towns of Karaikudi and Kanadukathan with dosai, idiyappam or plain rice and a spoon of ghee.
DrinkTamil Nadu
Coffee decoction dripped slowly through a two-part steel filter, mixed with boiled milk and sugar, then pulled between a tumbler and davara until it froths and cools enough to drink. Order it degree kaapi at Rayar Mess in Mylapore or any Chennai mess at six in the morning, and drink it fast.
Non-vegTelangana
Raw marinated mutton layered under half-cooked basmati, sealed with dough and cooked on dum so the meat and rice finish together. That kacchi method is what separates it from every other biryani. It comes with mirchi ka salan and dahi chutney. Secunderabad and the Charminar lanes serve it from mid-morning.
Non-vegAndaman & Nicobar Islands
Tuna, red snapper, squid and lobster landed that morning, rubbed with garlic, chilli and lime and grilled over coals, or simmered in coconut milk with curry leaves and green chilli in the settler kitchens of Port Blair. Eat it barefoot at the Govind Nagar shacks on Havelock, or on Neil Island after the sunset at Laxmanpur.
Eat it inHavelock (Swaraj Dweep)Neil Island (Shaheed Dweep)Port Blair
Go and eat
स्वाद की यात्राएँ
We plan these days around meal times rather than monuments: a market walk with a cook, a home kitchen at noon, and enough space between the two to be hungry again.
6 days · 5 nightsEasy · Best Oct–Mar
Delhi's tombs, Agra's marble and Jaipur's pink grid in six days
Route: Delhi → Agra → Fatehpur Sikri → Jaipur
7 days · 6 nightsEasy · Best Oct–Feb
Seven days from Mumbai's waterfront to Ajanta's brushwork and the Konkan
Route: Mumbai → Ajanta & Ellora Caves → Nashik → Lonavala & Khandala +1 more
8 days · 7 nightsEasy · Best Oct–Mar
Filter coffee in Bengaluru, pandi curry in Coorg, sunrise over the Vijayanagara boulders
Route: Bengaluru → Mysuru → Coorg (Kodagu) → Chikmagalur +1 more
8 days · 7 nightsEasy · Best Sep–Mar
Fort Kochi to a Vembanad houseboat, by way of the high tea country
Route: Kochi → Munnar → Thekkady & Periyar → Alleppey (Alappuzha) +1 more
21 days · 20 nightsModerate · Best Nov–Feb
Three weeks down the whole length of India, Delhi to Chennai
Route: Delhi → Agra → Jaipur → Udaipur +6 more