The Condé Nast Traveller x District Top Restaurant Awards 2025 were revealed at a lively, high spirited ceremony at the JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar, where India’s best restaurants, and the people behind them, were celebrated in style. The ranking of the top 50 restaurants in India has become a definitive barometer of the country’s dining scene, tracking how chefs, bartenders, and restauranteurs are shaping the way India eats and drinks today.
Once again, Mumbai dominates the list, with 13 restaurants among the top 50. Delhi and Bengaluru follow close behind, tied at nine entries each, while Goa holds its ground with eight. Chennai and its surrounds contribute five, Kolkata adds three, and the remaining three highlight how Jaipur, Kasauli, and Shillong are finding their place on India’s dining map. Together, the spread reinforces how India’s dining map is still anchored in its biggest cities, but also shows how new culinary centers are steadily emerging outside them.
Where are the best restaurants in India located?
Mumbai: 13
Bengaluru: 9
Delhi NCR: 9
Goa: 8
Chennai and around: 5
Kolkata: 3
Other: 3 (Kasauli, Jaipur, Shillong)
Condé Nast Traveller curates an extensive shortlist of 1000+ restaurants from across the country. Restaurants may nominate themselves to the list by filling out a form. 100 jury members, comprising India’s foremost tastemakers, undergo two phases of voting to come up with the 50 best restaurants in the country.
Who decides the rankings?
A 100 member jury privately voted for India’s best restaurants through a rigorous, two-phase process, with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP as the process advisors. Jurors are screened for conflicts of interest, and regional diversity is built into the jury to ensure a balanced national view. Jurors include food critics, writers, chefs, fashion designers, artists, curators, and others who know and love their food.
The best restaurants in India, as revealed at the Top Restaurant Awards 2025
1. The Table, Mumbai
What makes a restaurant number one? Sometimes it’s the theater of invention, a dish that startles with its imagination. But often, it’s the details that hum in the background: the butter served at just the right temperature, the cutlery aligned to the inch, your glass refilled before you think to ask. And maybe it’s the people—the diners who fill the room. At The Table, everyone has a seat. On any given night here, you’ll see families gathered at the community table, couples on dates, businessmen perched at the bar, Bollywood stars tucked into corners, and Colaba regulars who know the staff by name. The room buzzes with the same energy whether it’s a weekend weeknight, and nobody looks like it’s their first visit. That, perhaps, is the real mark of a number one restaurant: you simply cannot have a bad time here. Since 2011, The Table has been both a landmark and living room for Mumbai. In 2023, chef Will Aghajanian steered its boldest reset yet. Today, head chef Louis Gomes, who started here as a line cook and has stayed for over 15 years, anchors the kitchen with instinct and discipline, balancing classics with dishes that capture the season’s fleeting bounty. The Table belongs to fine dining’s pantheon, but without the pressure. You can celebrate a milestone here, or just slide into a cocktail and a plate of their cult-favorite chicken wings. The food persuades with confidence, featuring familiar flavors executed with precision, but also dishes that push diners just out of their comfort zone. The SoBo Salad is practically an institution, as is the smoked goose-fat pâté. The lamb brain and morel vol-au-vent is decadent yet playful, the lamb ribs emerge from the grill with pinpoint exactness, glossed in vadouvan honey and rosemary butter, and their hand-rolled pasta, from delicate sweet pea tortellini to hearty lamb ragù pappardelle, show that craftsmanship never goes out of style. Even the snacks carry personality, whether it’s crumpets Kejriwal spiked with salted egg yolk or chestnut “faux gras” layered with pear butter. And then there’s the Chef’s Choice Menu, a leap of faith that hands the night over to the kitchen.
2. Masque, Mumbai
On every global stage where Indian restaurants are measured, Masque is a name that comes up time and again. It has become the country’s most visible standard-bearer for modern Indian fine dining, thanks to its constant international collaborations, its daring sourcing journeys, and menus that refuse to stand still. A Relais & Châteaux member, it sits inside a converted Shakti Mills warehouse, where the room feels part theater, part temple, its dramatic volume framing the experience to come. The Masque experience unfolds as a ten-course tasting that can move from Manipuri black rice dumplings with fire ants to barramundi with prickly pear, and closes with sheermal wrapped around lamb kebab floss. Foraged ferns from Himachal, apricots from Ladakh, sea herbs from Goa, each course is shaped by pilgrimages across India, and sometimes by childhood memories slipped in for surprise. Guests step into the kitchen mid-meal for a counter course, before returning to wines that shift between the classic and the unexpected. At the helm are chef Varun Totlani, who joined as a commis and rose to head chef in 2022, and founder Aditi Dugar, one of the few women steering a marquee Indian restaurant. Together, they’ve made Masque a touchstone, a restaurant that signals how India wants to be seen on the world’s table. Nearly a decade in, Masque still feels like the restaurant setting the agenda for where Indian fine dining goes next.
3. Papa’s, Mumbai
You don’t book a seat at Papa’s—you win it, like a golden ticket. Twelve seats, gone in under a minute every month, and for good reason. Getting there feels like stumbling on a secret attic rave disguised as dinner. Squeeze through a Bandra alley, climb a narrow staircase above a sandwich shop, duck your head so you don’t slam it on the low ceiling, and you’ll get the feeling that you’re not on Waroda Road anymore. Chef Hussain Shahzad is behind the counter, plating Nihari pies, throwing char siu pork into modaks, blasting a playlist that jumps from Abba to Kanye, and pouring negroni shots into teacups like your mischievous older cousin who has usurped the house party. It’s called Papa’s in honor of the late legendary chef Floyd Cardoz, but what Hussain has built is his own playground. Nothing about it plays by the usual fine-dining rules. The twelve-course menu isn’t some solemn march through precious plates. Instead, it’s Hussain riffing, pranking, and flexing years of big chops from Eleven Madison Park and The Bombay Canteen. One course might be a Kashmiri Wellington lined with morel muslin, or the famous Bugs Bunny dish, ants included. And while the food is outrageous and dazzling, the vibe is pure structured chaos-by-design: tables with in-built fidget spinners, joke books, magnetic loops to fiddle with in between courses—they even wheel a gola machine out so you can crank your own ice. Pro tip: ask about the cutlery holders that change with each course. General manager Madhusudhan Kashyap keeps the energy tight, playing half sommelier, half ringmaster, sometimes pulling card tricks mid-service. Behind the bar, Harish Subramanian stirs cocktails that taste like pizza, tom yum, or the ocean, drinks as off-kilter and clever as the food. By dessert, which may or may not be a honey-noodle sundae with champagne foam and potato chips, you’ll be convinced that there’s no place like chef Hussain’s second home.
4. The Bombay Canteen, Mumbai
Here’s what happens when you sit down at The Bombay Canteen: the room greets you before the staff does. Music spills out, the kind that makes you tap your foot before you’ve opened your menu. A server is suddenly by your side introducing themselves, warm but razor-sharp, pointing you towards what to order before you even know what you’re in the mood for. You look around and realize that everyone on the floor is doing this in sync, part of a choreographed dance you’ll never notice unless you’re watching closely. The food carries the same spirit. Chef Gaurav Yadav leads the kitchen now, carrying forward a decade of Canteen DNA with menus that shift between India’s regional cuisines, and shapeshift with the seasons. The dishes you’ve heard whispers of are all here: eggs Kejriwal, ghee roast chicken seekh, that seabass sev puri, and the triumphant return of the gulab nut, a sugar-soaked doughnut stuffed with pistachio cream that’s as much legend as dessert. And then come the curveballs: grilled octopus lounging in a tangy, velvety mor kuzhambu, a Kejriwal croissant that flips the city’s favorite club snack 180 degrees, chicken jhol momos swimming in a broth laced with charred ginger, mustard greens, and chili oil. The cocktails deserve their own chapter. Every edition of the Canteen Cocktail Book is a love letter to Mumbai: a tequila drink that nods to the bustle of Matunga, a floral number that channels the chaos of Dadar’s flower stalls, a sharp pour that feels unmistakably Colaba. Five books in, the bar team is still mapping the city one drink at a time. That’s the trick of The Bombay Canteen. Ten years on, it’s still packed night after night, not because it’s clinging to nostalgia but because it knows how to turn a meal into a memory with food that makes you grin, drinks that root you to the city, and service that leaves you wondering how they anticipated your next move before you did.
5. NAAR, Kasauli
To experience NAAR in its most elemental form, one should visit in the throes of winter. The experience begins in the cold, thin air of Darwa village, a few miles past Kasauli. In the near-freezing temperatures, a buggy carries you up a winding cobblestone path, past a flickering bonfire and a viewpoint of Shimla’s lights glimmering in the distance and peaks emerging from the mist. The mountain dog Imli is usually the first to greet you, tail thudding against the stone steps, before you step into the warm glow of the salon, jazz humming quietly as a steaming broth is pressed into your hands. Inside the dining room, half swallowed by an open kitchen, ‘naar’, meaning fire in Kashmiri, sets the tempo. Ducks and trout skins sway gently over a fireplace, which emits both light and heat as chef Prateek Sadhu and chef Kamlesh Negi plate dishes that map the Himalayas’ seasons and landscapes, from the dry river beds of Ladakh to the hilly forests of Nagaland. One evening, you might be served a cured trout with smoky eggplant and raw mango and cactus broth; another, fiddlehead ferns tucked into patande pancakes; another still, hisalu berries, timru peppercorns, or sun-dried forest herbs. Opened by chef Prateek Sadhu in 2023, the 16-seat restaurant is the most daring leap yet from one of the country’s most acclaimed chefs. Every plate carries the ethos of a region that has always cooked with resilience and persistence. NAAR turned the idea of destination dining in India from pipe dream to pilgrimage. In his ‘Chef of the Year’ acceptance speech at last year’s Condé Nast Traveller’s Top Restaurant Awards, Sadhu called it “jumping without a parachute.” The landing, it seems, has been flawless.
6. Sienna Store & Café, Kolkata
What began in 2010 as a Shantiniketan pottery store has grown into one of Kolkata’s most compelling cultural projects. At its heart, Sienna Store & Café has always been about Bengal’s maati (land) and manush (people). The café-restaurant’s menus are rooted in the city’s markets and kitchens, reimagining familiar flavors with wit and care. A bhetki à la Kiev nods to Park Street classics, but is recast with radhuni butter and fresh fish from the bazaar. Jhol momos bring together malai chingri richness and crisp dumpling lace. A plate of choto maach bhaja arrives with a mach’er deem aioli that feels both nostalgic and new. These are dishes that speak Kolkata fluently while slipping into playful disguises. In 2023, Sienna earned national attention when it debuted at #5 on the Condé Nast Traveller list of top 50 restaurants, and its ambition has only grown since. Sienna’s latest chapter is Rannaghor, a chef’s table upstairs where chefs Avinandan Kundu and Koyel Roy Nandy push the idea further with elaborate tasting menus. But whether at the café or the chef’s table, the project stays true to its ethos: celebrating Bengal’s everyday flavors and makers, while giving the city, and the country, a fresh way of seeing them.
7. Indian Accent, The Lodhi, New Delhi
In the 15 years since it opened, Indian Accent has come to be an institution, one that reinvented how India tastes its own cuisine. Before it arrived in 2009, dining out at an “Indian restaurant” usually meant coma-inducing butter chicken, biryani, and the Mughlai staples that came to stand, inaccurately, for the entirety of Indian food. Chef Manish Mehrotra broke that mould with dishes that rebelled, startled, and delighted in equal measure, with a naan stuffed with blue cheese, an audacious move that became an emblem of modern Indian dining, pork ribs glazed with meetha achaar, and daulat ki chaat transformed into something impossibly light yet familiar. Over the years, Indian Accent has thrived despite a change of address (from The Manor to The Lodhi) and leadership, from chef Manish Mehrotra to chef Shantanu Mehrotra (no relation), who has been with Indian Accent since day one. His leadership ensures continuity while also signaling a new chapter. Recent tasting menus have been confident yet surprising: arbi bitterballen with caper-kasundi chutney, braised lamb shank with Punjabi kadhi, and the iconic kala khatta sorbet served in a miniature pressure cooker. The restaurant’s à la carte menu offers comfort, but it is the tasting menu that best shows how Indian Accent continues to evolve. It has repeatedly claimed the top spot on this list, including in 2017, 2019, and 2023. Today it continues to craft its legacy, one course at a time.
8. Avartana, ITC Grand Chola Chennai
Picture this: your overzealous foodie friend drags you to a tasting menu at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai. You’re a skeptic, someone who’d rather stick to no-fuss fare than sit through a parade of courses that look like science experiments. The first dish arrives, some Heston-esque concoction you aren’t quite sure how to eat. You roll your eyes, take a bite, and suddenly you’re in your grandmother’s kitchen, experiencing the exact tang, comfort, and warmth of the curd rice she used to make. That’s the magic of Avartana. It turns skeptics to believers by replicating that Ratatouille moment. Since opening in 2017, the restaurant has turned South Indian food into a tasting menu experience without stripping it of soul. Its name, Sanskrit for rhythm and repetition, shapes the structure of its seven, nine, eleven, and thirteen-course menus; respectively named Maya, Bela, Jiaa, Anika, and Tara. Each plate is a distillation: bottle gourd spirals with plum chutney and rice crisps, parotta compressed into a single bite with coconut chicken and butter toffee, fennel panna cotta with a yolk of mango-ginger coulis. The theatrics are sharp and deliberate, but never gimmicky, and the double-distilled rasam soup will make diners wish they could bottle it up and take it home. This wizardry is what landed Avartana the #1 rank at the Top Restaurant Awards in 2024. The restaurant’s brilliance lies in its sleight of hand: reimagining tradition without betraying it. That’s why Avartana isn’t just another progressive dining room. It’s theater with logic, wizardry with roots, and one of the most exhilarating ways to taste South India today.
9. NĀVU, Bengaluru
On a quiet side street in Domlur, a yellow awning signals NĀVU, a small, chef-driven restaurant that feels more like a neighborhood secret than a fine-dining spot. Inside, the space feels like an apartment dinner party combined with a restaurant: small, warm, minimalist, the kind of room where strangers lean in over plates and leave as friends. That intimacy is the canvas for chefs Pallavi Mithika Menon and Kanishka Sharma, whose menus are short, seasonal, and instinctive. The decor is minimalist, almost homey, but the food has made it one of India’s most whispered-about flexes. A platter of oysters on ice greets you on their Instagram page, an early clue that ingredients lead the way. Pallavi and Kanishka have mastered the classics so well they know exactly how to subvert them, pairing flavors that shouldn’t make sense, yet somehow do. A chicken liver pâté, served donburi-style over miso butter rice and lap cheong, shouldn’t work, but it sings. Recent menus have played with ideas like mustard ice cream with pickled cherry tomatoes, beef tartare with sunchoke purée and anchovy–caper vinaigrette, and confit parsnips served three ways, but the dish that has endured every iteration is the cauliflower crème brûlée, far more delicious than its name suggests. The energy is unfussy, the plating beautiful but still appetizing, and the food both indulgent and deeply thoughtful. For Bengaluru’s diners, NĀVU has become shorthand for what chef-led dining in India can be: confident, creative, and cool without trying too hard.
10. FarmLore, Bengaluru
The road out of Bengaluru ends in 37 acres of mango and coconut groves, and at the edge of it all sits FarmLore. Just 18 seats, a dining room lit by the slow glow of wood stoves named Kannagi and Anjaneya, fed with mango wood cut from the property itself. There’s also Omnisense, a private dining room linked to the R&D kitchen, where the team pushes experiments even further. Step outside and you’re on the farm that writes the menu; step inside and you’re in a kitchen-laboratory where chef Johnson Ebenezer and his team bend that produce into something extraordinary. The tasting menu unfolds like a seasonal hymn. “Agni & Ghrta” layers charred lettuce with smoked ghee and pickled legumes; “Amirtha” is all Kodai berikai and kokum tea, softened with jaggery; “Kr̥ṣi Kuri • Kollu” is lamb cooked for 18 hours, anchored by horsegram. Then there are the jolts of daring: “Chigli,” made with FarmLore’s own fire ants, paired with whey sorbet and saw-tooth coriander, or “Singi,” a Rameshwaram lobster glazed with saffron and kalpasi. It’s food that can feel cerebral, even otherworldly, but the flavors always circle back to the land beneath your feet.
11. Bomras, Goa
Anjuna has no shortage of restaurants built to please passing tourists, but for 16 years Bomras has been the one people come back to, season after season. Chef-owner Bawmra Jap, a Kachin from Myanmar, built his reputation through bowls of tea leaf salad that crunch and zing, tiger prawn ceviche sharpened with local lime, curries layered with complexity, and a smoked pork fried rice that regulars refuse to share. The food feels fresh and light, yet carries the kind of depth that keeps you thinking about it long after the plates are cleared. The restaurant briefly shut during the pandemic, only to return in 2020 at a new home in Anjuna, complete with a small herb garden feeding the kitchen. The move hasn’t dented its spirit: Bomras is still packed with loyalists, travelers, and most recently Ed Sheeran. The tender coconut panna cotta, impossibly wobbly and brightened with passion fruit, remains one of Goa’s most beloved sweets. Year after year, Bomras stays on this list not because of novelty, but because of its rare balance: a restaurant that honors its roots, adapts with time, and still feels as fresh as the day it opened.
12. Izumi Bandra, Mumbai
Before Japanese dining became a full-blown wave in Mumbai, Izumi was the ripple that started it. When chef and co-owner Nooresha Kably, now an official Goodwill Ambassador for Japanese cuisine in India, opened her Bandra restaurant in 2018, the mood for Japanese dining in Mumbai changed. The restaurant made sushi and ramen a little less ceremonial and a little more accessible, straightforward, and instantly at home in the city. Seven years later, as Japanese restaurants multiply across Mumbai, Izumi is still the reference point. The OG. The 54-seater packs in regulars night after night, drawn as much by the warmth of its wood-and-concrete room as by signature dishes that have become city lore: hamachi truffle ponzu with wasabi jelly, a sashimi salad bright enough to cut through any Bandra evening, and bowls of ramen that diners in the city swear by. But Izumi doesn’t coast. This year’s menu introduces open rolls that let single ingredients shine in their purest form, a chilled miso-sesame ramen with smoked mackerel that feels designed for Mumbai summers, and a kaisen don that channels the restraint of Hokkaido’s fishing towns: seafood and rice, nothing more, nothing less. The zensai platter, meanwhile, shifts with the seasons, a lineup of small plates with things like akami and king crab one week, tamago and edamame the next. In a city where restaurants come and go at an alarming speed, Izumi endures, not because it shouts the loudest, but because it listens to its ingredients, and to the diners who have made it a fixture in Mumbai’s dining imagination.
www.PankajAnand..in
13. Bandra Born, Mumbai
The cooking at Bandra Born is as cheeky and layered as the suburb it draws its name from. Beets are treated like steak, prawns are set in a silky bottle masala custard, and an East Indian crab curry comes with croissant pav. These plates nod to Bandra’s past while swaggering into the present, under the steady hand of chef Manoj Shetty, who keeps the kitchen humming while OG Bandra Boy Gresham Fernandes holds the wider vision. Fernandes also moonlights as a DJ, and on nights when the energy crests, he’s been known to step behind the console and spin a set. The drinks are just as audacious: sugarcane-ginger cocktails that taste like Bandra station in monsoon, guava-spiked tequila numbers that channel Bazaar Road. And the room itself, grungy, loud, feels like a neighbourhood party you were lucky enough to stumble into. During your meal at Bandra Born, you’ll clock the graffiti, the cheeky slogans, and the church-board menu hanging on the wall. But the real story of this restaurant isn’t what’s on display, but what happens in the background. In the ladies’ room, a sign tells women that if they ever feel unsafe, they can order a “special drink” at the bar and the staff will take care of them. That small detail says everything about what Fernandes has built here: a restaurant that looks wild but takes care of you in ways you don’t even realize, much like the suburb it celebrates.
14. O Pedro, Mumbai
At O Pedro in the Bandra Kurla Complex, the mood shifts the moment you walk in. Suddenly the glass-and-steel energy of Mumbai’s business district melts into something brighter, as if you’ve wandered into a Goan living room that just happens to have an excellent bar. The air smells faintly of toddy, the walls hum with color, and the staff greet you with the kind of aunty-level warmth that makes you believe they’ve been waiting for you all day. Someone’s already stacking poees on your table, and before you know it, you’re tearing into one with a smear of choriz butter while debating whether to order the Kokum Picante or the Vasco Sour first. The food carries the same generosity. Choriz chilli tacos in crisp rice bhakris, soft-shell crab kismur that tastes like the sea and the sun, pastéis de nata that are flaky, custardy, and gone before you realise it. What keeps O Pedro alive, though, is its appetite for conversation: guest shifts from Goa’s beloved kitchens like Hosa and Grumps bring new voices to the programming, making the restaurant as much a platform for the state’s food culture as it is a celebration of it.
sachin soni
15. Grumps, Goa
At the end of a winding path in Sangolda that seems at first to lead nowhere, you’ll find Grumps, a haunt that has quickly become Goa’s most unlikely neighborhood institution, founded by Kartik Vasudeva (formerly of The Bombay Canteen) and his partner Agrini Satyarthi. Inside, the energy is immediate but not overwhelming. The bar hums, orders fly, yet your drink lands in minutes and food even faster. Here, staff remember faces, chat across the counter, and make space for solo walk-ins as readily as for groups. It’s part of why Grumps has become that rare thing in Goa: a neighborhood bar where you can show up alone and feel like you belong. The menu is compact but intentional, ranging from beef croquettes with star anise jus, to Sichuan fried chicken buzzing with burnt garlic, to lamb krapow kebabs, caramelized just right. Even the vegetarian plates carry heft, like the smoky three-mushroom medley brightened with chimichurri and egg yolk. Cocktails follow the same logic: flavor-forward, balanced, never showy. A whiskey drink layered with sweet bun syrup and oloroso sherry, another blending scotch with brunost for a wine-and-cheese-in-a-glass moment. What sets Grumps apart is how deliberately unforced it feels. The lighting is warm but never dim, music present but never overbearing, the mood unpretentious yet charged. And when the bill arrives, it comes with a small booklet of the team’s favorite spots across Goa. No agenda, just a friendly hand pointing you to more good places. In a state where hype usually rules, Grumps has built its following the old way: word of mouth, and the kind of experience people want to share.
16. The Johri, Jaipur
Push past the jewelers and gemstone traders of Jaipur’s Johri Bazaar, step through the carved wooden door of a 19th-century haveli washed in pinks, with latticed windows and hand-painted cranes keeping watch. It’s like you’ve wandered onto a Wes Anderson set that got the royal Rajasthani treatment. But beyond the arresting aesthetic, The Johri takes the ingenuity of Rajasthan’s kitchens by taking recipes born of arid battle fields, short harvests, and age-old preservation, and spinning them into a seasonal vegetarian menu that feels both elegant and rooted. Chef Sonu Kumar, working off frameworks by chef Vikram Arora, brings these traditions to the modern diner without diluting them. Paan-patta chaat snaps with heat and sweetness, a truffle aloo tikki arrives under a parmesan “papad,” and the butter-rich dal Johri quickly explains why it’s a signature. Tandoor-roasted soya chaap and sev-tamatar with house sev sit beside seasonal highlights like jamun sorbet dusted with rock salt or a gold-leafed mirchi ka halwa that even Jains can enjoy. The Johri doubles as the dining room for a five-suite hotel, so the pace is unhurried, the service assured, and the room as welcoming to a solo diner as it is to a boisterous family. And while it has a deep sense of place, it’s no local secret: in 2024, it hosted Handshake Speakeasy, then the world’s number one bar, for a one-night takeover that confirmed its place on the global stage. A restaurant born of Rajasthan’s resourceful culinary traditions, set in a haveli that still hums with history, The Johri is as enduring as the bazaar outside.
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17. Americano, Mumbai
By 9 p.m., Americano hums like a sold-out concert. Every table is taken, cocktails keep flying out, and at the pass in dead centre stands chef Alexander Lee Sanchez, watching the floor, slicing pies, and adjusting plates, like a silent conductor making sure the orchestra never misses a beat. That vigilance explains why Lee Sanchez’s restaurant, opened in 2019 with partner Mallyeka Watsa, has become one of Mumbai’s hardest-to-get tables and one of India’s most consistent restaurants. The cooking is modern Italian, stripped of gimmickry but obsessed with ingredients. Here, flour and tomatoes are trialed until the perfect match is found, olive oil is sourced with the scrutiny of a collector, and every dish is tested until it sings. The obsession here is pizza: dough perfected over years, tomatoes sourced after endless searches, toppings balanced with the precision of someone who sees the world in mise en place. The result is arguably the best slice in the city, crisp-edged yet pliant, with just enough char to make you chase the next bite. But Americano is no one-hit wonder. The roast chicken—juicy, burnished, utterly simple—might be the most underrated dish on the menu, and the tiramisu has its own fanbase: scooped fresh at the table, hiding a sly layer of tempered chocolate. Don’t sleep on the cocktails either. They’re as exacting as the food, designed to be sipped all night without losing their edge. That balance, precision without pretension, buzz without chaos, is why Americano sells out night after night. You come for the pizza and tiramisu, and you stay because Lee Sanchez has made sure every detail is immaculate.
18. LUPA, Bengaluru
On MG Road, where Bengaluru’s traffic roars, LUPA drowns it all out by creating an oasis that makes you feel as if you’re in an Italian villa: marble fountains bubble, terracotta tiles glow, and the brass bar catches the light like one in a Milanese bistro. This is chef Manu Chandra’s grand, post-pandemic return of 2023, and he didn’t come back small. LUPA sprawls across 11,000 square feet, with a salumeria, gelato lab, and wine cellar tucked 12 feet underground, but its scale never feels gratuitous. The food has Chandra’s signature mix of rigor and generosity. Parma ham and mortadella arrive with warm tigelle buns; a steak tartare is prepared in a tableside performance; oxtail ravioli breaks open to reveal yolk and bone marrow broth. At the heart of the dining room is a Cattabriga gelato machine, steadily churning fresh batches that arrive at the table silken and cold. To enhance the Tuscan atmosphere, negronis, balanced and bracing, flow in abundance, while the courtyard fountains drown out the metro overhead. LUPA is an intentional stage for Chandra’s maximalism, and his rebellion against what he calls the “stupidification of food.” The result is a restaurant where occasion dining feels alive again.
19. Praça Prazeres, Goa
In the heart of Panjim’s Fontainhas quarter, Praça Prazeres sits in a restored heritage home that feels equal parts European bistro and Goan living room. Chef Ralph Prazeres and Stacy Gracias, the couple behind Padaria Prazeres and its cult Portuguese egg tarts, built this space to be warm and inviting, a place where European classics arrive without fuss, but with every detail just right. The menu reflects Ralph’s years in kitchens from London to Copenhagen: golden Scotch eggs with soft centers, pork belly crisped and paired with apple sauce, fish pan-roasted and glossed with beurre blanc, crème brûlée with the perfect crack of sugar. A live kitchen on the ground floor keeps things intimate; climb upstairs and you’ll find the attic bar, a cosy perch where cocktails share space with an in-house limoncello, poured generously alongside a charcuterie board. What makes Praça Prazeres endure, though, isn’t just the food, it’s the sense of care woven through the experience. The furniture has been pulled from Ralph’s grandfather’s home, each piece carrying its own patina of family history. Service is warm, unhurried, attentive without pretense. One last detail: if you happen to go to the washroom, scan the QR code. It’s a tiny Easter egg that says everything about the playful, personal spirit behind the restaurant.
Gokul Prasanth
20. Bar Spirit Forward, Bengaluru
On Lavelle Road, where most restaurants double as breweries, Bar Spirit Forward keeps things sharp, low-lit, and built for grown-ups. Think chrome bar, smoky glass, leather seats, essentially more cocktail theater than beer hall. Conceptualized by Arijit Bose (the same mind behind Goa’s now-shuttered Tesouro, once crowned India’s best bar), this is the kind of spot where the bartenders spiral citrus into glassware like its choreography and can pull from a shadow list of sixty classics without blinking. The menu dares you into choices like Milk & Cookies (Irish whiskey, cookie milk punch) or Shoot the Gringo (mezcal, Campari, vermouth), but the precision is deadly serious. Even the vesper martini comes pre-diluted, frozen, and poured straight from an icy bottle. Bar bites do their job. There’s Anglo-Indian pork buns, Sichuan fried chicken, and a pecan tart among others, but the cocktails are the headliners, each one a reminder of why this 60-seater has become Bengaluru’s most whispered-about flex.
21. Naru Noodle Bar, Bengaluru
Most evenings in Shanti Nagar, you’ll spot the telltale sign of Naru’s popularity: a line of diners waiting their turn for a bowl of ramen. That’s the pull of Naru, chef Kavan Kuttappa’s 20-seater noodle bar turned cult obsession. It began with DIY ramen kits in lockdown, graduated to pop-ups, and finally landed here: a tiny wood-and-glass room inside The Courtyard, marble counter veined with bronze, shibori-wrapped stools, and Kuttappa himself, tatted, grinning, ladling broth behind the steam. The unspoken rules are simple: eat your ramen quickly and with gusto, slurp loudly, and don’t be shy about tipping the bowl to drink the last drops. Every detail has been fussed over, from the bent-spout sake pitchers made by local pottery studios to the hefty ramen bowls tested for weeks until they felt just right. The menu has six ramens, a few sides, some sake, and that’s all it needs. A shoyu ramen arrives fragrant with soy, menma, and chashu pork; a tori paitan broth is creamy and rich without tipping into heaviness; the Goan chorizo tantanmen throws in a cheeky local kick. There’s also room for the unorthodox: a naati tori paitan built on chicken curry, or vegan-friendly bowls that hold their own alongside the classics. Sides like karaage with yuzu dip and pork gyoza with lacy wings vanish as quickly as they land. Reservations disappear in seconds (fastest fingers first at 11am on Mondays). There are no walk-ins, and there is no other way to snag a seat, but if you manage to, you’ll see why the hype hasn’t dipped since day one. Naru doesn’t try to be more than it is: just ramen, made with obsession, served with heart, and gone in seven glorious minutes.
22. Cavatina by Avinash Martins, Goa
Benaulim’s Cavatina is the kind of restaurant where Goa speaks in multiple registers; chiles, coconut, vinegar, cashew, all reshaped into plates that feel new without letting go of what makes them familiar. Chef Avinash Martins cooks from memory as much as from training. His grandmother’s negotiations with fish vendors, toddy, a fermented palm sap, used to leaven bread, childhood afternoons waiting at the jetty for crabs. Those details resurface on the plate, presented with polish but never losing their soul. The menu changes with the season: valchi bhaji paired with mushrooms and morels, tongue in temperado masala brightened as tartare, serradura reborn as a tart. Ingredients are never anonymous. Here, bamboo mats are woven by local artisans, masalas are ground by hand, bread arrives from a village baker. Martins insists on this because for him, Cavatina’s intention is to keep Goa’s small economies and traditions alive. Plenty of celebrities have eaten here, from cricketers to film stars, but the real star is Goa itself, its people, its produce, its stubborn, generous spirit.
23. Kopitiam Lah, Bengaluru
In Indiranagar, breakfast now begins the Malaysian way. Kopitiam Lah, from pastry artist Joonie Tan (of Lavonne) and chef David D’Souza, recreates the kopitiam: the neighborhood coffee shop that anchors daily life in Malaysia. Kopitiam Lah is built on ritual. Sweet kopi pulled thick with condensed milk, teh frothed with evaporated milk, half-boiled eggs cracked into a saucer with soy and white pepper, kaya toast stacked with salted butter and coconut jam. Plates of nasi lemak perfumed with pandan rice, bowls of laksa steaming hot enough to chase away jet lag, this is how mornings begin across Malaysia, and now, in Bengaluru. The flavors are disarmingly familiar. Otak-otak, a spiced fish custard steamed in banana leaf, feels like patrani macchi’s cousin. Mama’s curry with roti canai could pass for a parotta-and-kurma in southern India. Then there are jolts of newness: rendang beside nasi lemak, steamed lettuce in oyster sauce, carrot milk as sweet and soothing as gajar ka kheer. Much of this is possible thanks to ingredients flown in, like belacan and gula melaka, that give the food its unapologetically Malaysian soul. The room hums like a true kopitiam too: tiled floors, rooster motifs, hibiscus prints, cane chairs, flea-market finds, and a lucky Maneki Neko cat watching over the kopi bar. By 9am, the high stools are full, kopi is being brewed to order, and plates keep landing.
24. INJA, New Delhi
Delhi’s restaurant scene has no shortage of risks, but few land as audaciously as INJA. Tucked into The Manor, this Indian-Japanese mash-up by chef Adwait Anantwar has been sparking arguments since it opened. Half the city calls it genius, the other half isn’t sure what to think. Either way, everyone’s talking, and the food explains why. A silken chawanmushi spiked with rasam masala and butter-poached lobster; a tempura shiso leaf standing in as palak patta chaat, loaded with tuna and pomelo; gobi 65, but with as a maki roll with curry leaf crackle. These are dishes that shouldn’t make sense, but do, and spectacularly. Even the cocktails get cheeky: a lychee-gondhoraj martini that drinks like summer in Kolkata, or a sudachi paloma laced with Naga chile heat. It helps that Anantwar, who spent three and a half years testing these combinations, doesn’t flinch from going all in. Soy sauce? You won’t find it here. Gajar ka halwa? It comes stuffed inside a pillowy Japanese steamed bun. This is cooking that dares you to drop your cynicism and just go along for the ride. Whether you love it or roll your eyes, INJA is undeniably the most polarizing and electrifying restaurant in the capital.
25. Baoshuan, The Oberoi New Delhi
Rooftop restaurants in Delhi usually lean heavily on the view, but at Baoshuan, the real spectacle is on the plate. Perched above The Oberoi, New Delhi, with the Delhi Golf Club unfurling beneath you, the restaurant draws its name from the treasure ships that once carried Chinese goods across the seas. That sense of journey shapes everything here. The menu, created by London-based chef Andrew Wong of the two-Michelin-starred A. Wong, reads like a passport through centuries and provinces: Buddhist temple cooking from the Tang dynasty, Suzhou’s lantern-lit tea houses, Shanghai’s jazz age, Hong Kong’s cocktail bars. What lands on the table is both measured and inventive: a thousand-layer chicken puff that shatters at the touch, prawn-and-spinach dumplings crowned with tobiko, roast duck carved with ritualistic flair. Each dish anchors itself in a region, from Sichuan’s peppercorn fire to Canton’s delicate dim sum craft, but is filtered through Wong’s meticulous modern lens. The effect is less greatest-hits Chinese and more a narrative that stretches across 14 borders, distilled into a meal.
26. Comorin, Gurugram
At Comorin, the thrill is in realizing that dishes you thought you knew, like pav bhaji, bheja fry, kadhi, don’t just taste better here, they taste smarter. Chef Dhiraj Dargan nudges tradition sideways without breaking it, slipping bakarwadi into kadhi, crisping gatte like polenta, or plating beetroot raita as a radial of pickled vegetables. It’s food that stays grounded in memory while feeling entirely new. The bar, led by Varun Sharma, has earned its own cult status. Clarified cocktails, sous-vide infusions, and house-made vermouths, liqueurs, and bitters mean your Comorin 75 or walnut sour arrives with the kind of balance only obsessive tinkering delivers. Even the zero-proof options, like carrot shrub spins on Bloody Marys or khus-and-basil sodas, don’t feel like compromises. Sleek interiors keep things polished but never stiff; the restaurant doubles as a retail space for teas, coffee, ceramics, and tableware you’ll want to smuggle home. It’s this mix of serious culinary craft and easygoing charm that has made Comorin a dining room people return to, again and again, for a taste of India’s classics made just a little more brilliant.
27. Aeseo, Chennai
India may be in the thick of the Hallyu wave, but until recently, Korean food here rarely went beyond sweet-chilli dusted chips or fast-food gimmicks. Chennai, though, has long had the real thing. Ever since Hyundai set up its plant outside the city in the ’90s, a tight-knit Korean community has built a dining culture of its own. Aeseo is part of that story, serving the classics with unusual fidelity: vegetables are grown locally for the kitchen, while the meats are flown in straight from Korea. Run entirely by a Korean team, it doesn’t pander or approximate. Every table is fitted with a charcoal grill, the air is clouded just enough with smoke, and bottles of soju clink between plates of pajeon and bulgogi fried rice. You may as well be in a barbecue joint in Gangnam. The food has no patience for stereotypes. Beef arrives with marbling that glistens even before it hits the coals. Shrimp pancakes are scallion-studded and plush, bulgogi fried rice layered with sesame depth. And then the barbecue duck—smoky, fatty, unapologetically intense, grilled till the skin crisps and the meat nearly drips—makes the trip to Chennai worth it on its own. This is Aeseo’s first time appearing on this list, making it the first Korean restaurant ever to do so.
28. Petisco Kitchen & Bar, Goa
In Portuguese, ‘petisco’ means a snack or a little bite, but in Panjim it signals something larger: a place where food, drink, and music tumble into each other until the night feels whole. Opened in 2020 by chefs Halton DSouza and Pranav Dhuri, Petisco is a three-story gastrobar that wears different moods on every floor. The basement thumps with live gigs and karaoke nights, the middle level hums with groups sharing plates over cocktails, and the top floor softens into date-night territory where you can actually hear yourself talk. DSouza and Dhuri’s menu is stitched together from plates that are simple, flavor-forward, and made to be passed around, like chimichurri chicken with a sharp bite, prawns swimming in garlic and chili oil, a mackerel seared till the skin crisps and paired with tirphal beurre blanc, flatbreads topped with roasted roots, and even an ukde tandul jambalaya that folds Goan red rice into Creole comfort. The drinks program matches the food’s easy charm. Think smoked whisky Penicillins, a feni Manhattan that turns local spirit into a polished cocktail, grapefruit-spiked G&Ts, seasonal sangrias, and the Coco Ambo, with tender coconut and mango, light and summery, poured long over ice. Petisco is that rare Goan spot that manages to be both a neighborhood haunt and a visitor’s find, as comfortable for a romantic dinner as it is for shouting along to the chorus downstairs.
Nilesh Dhakle
29. La Loca Maria, Mumbai
Tucked into Pali Hill, La Loca María feels like a little slice of Spain spun through Mumbai’s energy. As you enter, warm, eclectic interiors with artfully conceptualized details and hand-painted mural ceilings catch the eye before the food does. The name, “the crazy Maria”, is chef Manuel Olveira’s tribute to his mother, who first set him loose in a kitchen back in Toledo. After years cooking in Michelin-starred dining rooms in Madrid and stops in Dubai and Mumbai, Olveira brought those roots into this space that’s equal parts family story and contemporary Spanish dining. The menu is vivid and unafraid of punchy flavors. Tapas classics like gambas al ajillo—shrimp seared till smoky, bathing in garlic oil—sit alongside charred octopus, lobster paella, and pinchos meant to be picked up and demolished in two bites. But it’s the tacos that have become the obsession in the background here: supple tortillas cradling fillings like roasted pumpkin with black beans, or fresh seafood given just the right squeeze of citrus. They’re Spanish in sensibility but entirely their own. The drinks list leans into the mood: Spanish wines, craft cocktails, plenty of tequila and mezcal for when the night starts to tilt festive. With its bursts of color, La Loca María is a reminder that Spanish food, like Mumbai itself, works best when it’s loud, generous, and a little bit crazy.
Rahul Vangani
30. Wasabi by Morimoto – The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai
Some restaurants earn their place on this list by shaking up the scene; others by holding it steady. Wasabi by Morimoto has done the latter, year after year, and in doing so has become as much of a fixture as the hotel it inhabits. Opened nearly two decades ago as chef Masaharu Morimoto’s second global outpost, it was a bold bet on Japanese fine dining in a city that was only beginning to look outward. What’s remarkable is how little it has wavered since. The white fish carpaccio, black cod miso, and Wasabi crème brûlée remain benchmarks, while sushi and sashimi are prepared with ingredients flown in directly from Japan. The room, minimalist, wood-toned, framed by views of the Gateway and Arabian Sea, keeps the focus exactly where it belongs: on the plate. A sake or Japanese whisky from the deep bar list is often all the embellishment you need. Wasabi by Morimoto has survived precisely because it hasn’t had to. In an industry defined by turnover, that kind of constancy is its own statement.
31. Kappa Chakka Kandhari, Chennai
At Kappa Chakka Kandhari, a prawn kizhi arrives steaming in banana leaf, coconut-slick and fragrant; a kudampuliyitta fish curry is served the only way it should be, with mashed tapioca; mutton chops meet the soft chew of pathiri. Every plate tells a story from Kerala’s toddy shops, home kitchens, and temples, collected by chef Regi Mathew over years of crisscrossing the state. He spent about three years traveling across Kerala, speaking to over 250 home cooks and 70 local toddy shop owners, some of whom are now part of his kitchen. It’s an approach that has kept the restaurant on this list since it opened in 2018. But what makes this year special is how the project has evolved. And if there’s one dish that has become shorthand for KCK, it’s the Cloud Pudding: a tender coconut dessert so airy it feels like a sweet sigh. More than a signature, it’s become a cult favorite: light enough to end every meal and memorable enough to feature in real-life love stories.
32. Dum Pukht, ITC Maurya, New Delhi
The very name is a clue: dum pukht, “to breathe and to cook,” is the slow, sealed handi method that coaxed depth and fragrance out of royal kitchens centuries ago. At ITC Maurya, the restaurant carrying that name still does what it has always done: make the case for patience. Recipes drawn from the Nawabi courts are allowed to unfold in their own time, layered and deliberate. The kakori kebab here dissolves almost before it reaches the tongue, the Dum Pukht biryani arrives cloaked in aroma, and even a dish as unassuming as baghare baingan emerges nuanced, mellow, complete. Chandeliers and Awadhi lamps cast their glow on a dining room that leans towards the opulent without feeling heavy-handed. The restaurant owes its existence and icon status to the late legend chef Imtiaz Qureshi, who brought the royal cuisine of Awadh into the modern dining room and, in the process, gave the dum pukht technique a new life. That fidelity, to recipes, to technique, to a slower pace of cooking, remains its north star even today. After a brief hiatus, Dum Pukht returns to this list, a reminder that consistency, maintained over decades, can be its own definition of luxury.
33. Veronica’s, Mumbai
In Bandra, cafés come and go, but Veronica’s is the one that stuck. Since 2023, this all-day sandwich shop has turned a sleepy Ranwar corner into a permanent queue. The formula is disarmingly simple: good bread, serious fillings, and enough wine and coffee to make you forget you came for “just one sandwich.” The menu gets straight to the point: the Pass the Pastrami piles on smoked beef in generous portions, the Big Floyd brings Nashville heat in the form of hot fried chicken, and the Taming the (Mu)Shroom Melt makes a convincing case for going meatless. Even the “Avo Snob,” topped with burrata and pesto, manages to feel like more than just another avocado toast riff. The space, built inside the old Jude Bakery, still carries that neighborhood soul, with a skylight overhead, a community pin board, kombucha taps, and the faint hum of people actually having a good time. Pair your sandwich with a Vietnamese iced coffee, or better yet, a glass of wine from their cleverly curated list. What Veronica’s really proves is that sometimes the city doesn’t need another scene-y restaurant. It just needs a place that does the holy trinity–bread, coffee, wine–so well, you find yourself back in line the very next week.
Prarthana Shetty
34. Bengaluru Oota Company, Bengaluru
Some restaurants serve food; others serve memory. At Bengaluru Oota Company, the line between the two dissolves. Set inside a mustard-yellow home in Halasuru with just five tables, this restaurant doubles as an extended family table where the menu is decided by season, market haul, and the host’s instinct. Meals are “by reservation only,” which means they’re curated with you in mind. A typical spread might begin with a seasonal drink, segue into mutton cutlets or kori gassi, and continue with rice, curries, pachadis, pickles, and the inevitable curd rice, because no South Indian meal is complete without it. Dessert and filter coffee arrive as punctuation marks. The woman behind it all, Divya Prabhakar, with nearly two decades in hospitality, moves easily between host, storyteller, and cook, often nudging second helpings your way while recounting the roots of the dishes on your plate. The menu shifts daily, drawing from both Gowda and Mangalorean traditions, which means no two visits are quite the same, except in the sense that each feels like a personal invite.
35. Hosa, Goa
In Siolim, one of Goa’s prettiest Indo-Portuguese bungalows has been transformed into Hosa, its powder-blue façade and leafy patio pulling you in before you’ve even glanced at the menu. Inside, high ceilings, graphic tiles, and a bar lined with tinctures and infusions set the stage for a restaurant that puts the cooking of southern India in sharp focus. Chef Harish Rao leads the kitchen with a 38-dish menu that roams across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Think curry leaf-cured snapper doused in kokum rasa, edamame paniyarams, almonds dressed up in the style of chicken 65, and crab tangled with Guntur chili. The dishes are precise but not precious, rooted in memory while borrowing the technique and polish of a global kitchen. The drinks are no less ambitious. Beverage director Varun Sharma, also behind the bars at Comorin and Indian Accent, builds a program that veers from playful to serious: rum and kokum cola fizzing with housemade soda, mango gin cocktails rimmed with gunpowder spice, even a shandy dispensed from an on-table contraption. Non-alcoholic spirits and zero-proof “gin-ish” cocktails get their own section, acknowledging the new ways Goa likes to drink. For Siolim, Hosa has quickly become the kind of place you dress up for. For the rest of us, it’s proof of just how expansive and varied South Indian food can be when treated with curiosity and respect.
Prarthana Shetty
36. Mizu Izakaya, Mumbai
On any given night, Mizu feels like it’s holding three conversations at once. The room splits into three stages. At the counter, chefs slice hamachi into pearly sashimi and roll futomaki fat enough to make you pause mid-conversation. Upstairs, steam curls out of ramen bowls and bao baskets, the broth rich enough to perfume the air. At the bar, bottles of sake and soju are flanked by jars of pickled plums and tinctures; by the end of the night, chances are someone will be dancing on the counter. Chef Lakhan Jethani’s builds on Japanese comfort staples like ramen, sashimi, small plates, layering them with flavors that stretch from truffle to gondhoraj. Salmon sashimi comes with truffle, yuzu and a whisper of gondhoraj; pork belly is lacquered in shoyu tare until it shines; ramen noodles are rolled in-house, the vegetarian miso dashi as layered as the Sapporo pork broth. Dessert, if you’re in the know, means a Japanese cotton cheesecake so light it’s almost a disappearing act, and Shokupan ice cream sandwiches. That pulse now carries over beyond Bandra. Mizu has now opened a second outpost in Goa, carrying its izakaya spirit to the coast.
37. The Glenburn Penthouse Restaurant, Kolkata
High above Chowringhee, Glenburn Penthouse looks straight onto the Victoria Memorial and the sweep of the Maidan, a view few city hotels can rival. The nine-key retreat borrows its bones from colonial Bengal: wood-paneled floors, four-poster beds, pastel-hued wallpaper, white marble bathrooms with standalone tubs. Around it all are understated pleasures: afternoon tea on the veranda, a swim in the rooftop infinity pool, a book in the library courtyard. The kitchen keeps pace with the setting. Chef Shawn Kenworthy and head chef Ranjit Shaw put local ingredients through a European lens, serving up dishes like soft-shell crab in moilee sauce, duck kosha singara with pineapple, and goat braised for twelve hours and finished with a vindaloo jus. The menus change often, but the meals are as elegant as the rooms they’re served in. At Glenburn, food and space work in tandem. Each frames the other here above the city, its bustle at bay and its history in view.
38. For the Record Vinyl Bar, Goa
For the Record (locals call it FTR) doesn’t feel like a bar so much as stepping into the home of a friend who happens to collect vinyls, bake sourdough, build his own speakers, and play jazz on the side. That friend is Buland Shukla, architect, audio engineer, musician, and the force behind this Panjim spot where cocktails, food, and music fold into each other. A bimbli tree shades the entrance, neighborhood dogs wander in, and inside, records line the shelves while a gramophone spins jazz and blues. The cocktail list is short but inventive, anchored in local spirits: think solkadi-spiced feni, gin hit with chili oil and cardamom bitters, or hibiscus tea mixed with mahua. The food is similarly playful: wings lacquered in house hot sauce, a tongue salad with a kick, pides and pizzas when you need heft. Most nights, you’re as likely to find a vinyl listening session as a swing evening or a set by Shukla’s own Banjara Quartet. It’s not a slick concept bar—it’s more personal than that, an atmosphere you ease into like dropping the needle on a favorite record.
39. Megu, The Leela Palace, New Delhi
Since 2012, Megu at The Leela Palace has been one of Delhi’s most polished addresses for Japanese dining. The Leela Palace restaurant has been a draw for the city’s well-heeled, with its dark oak interiors, latticed screens, and jewel-toned silks. But it’s the kitchen’s balance of restraint and luxury, now under the steady hand of head chef Shubham Thakur, that keeps regulars returning. The fish is flown in from Tokyo twice a week and handled with care as nigiri, sashimi, or carpaccio. But Megu also leans into opulence: salmon tartare with ikura and caviar, silver cod with yuzu miso, a 24-hour braised pork belly that feels almost ceremonial. Signatures like the crispy asparagus or tuna tataki with ponzu have long outlasted trends, while desserts, like wasabi cheesecake or a yuzu and lemon curd tart, signal a kitchen unafraid to have fun. Pair it with something from the encyclopedic sake list or a bottle from the wine cellar, and you’ll understand why Megu remains one of the city’s definitive addresses for Japanese food—serious, yes, but also seductive in its consistency.
40. Bukhara, ITC Maurya, New Delhi
There are restaurants that build reputations on changing with the times, and then there is Bukhara, which has built its legacy on refusing to. Since opening at ITC Maurya in 1978, it has served the same rustic North-West Frontier menu, in the same earthenware bowls, under the same rough-hewn beams. The ritual is part of the appeal: naan stretched as wide as the table, kebabs pulled straight from the tandoor, and the signature, almost synonymous dal, a black lentil preparation simmered on low heat for close to 24 hours until it achieves its smoky, buttery depth. As per Bukhara’s lore, during then president Bill Clinton’s India visit in 2000, he dipped in, licked his fingers, and reportedly said: “I wish I had two stomachs… carry me in a stretcher to my room if you have to, but I will have the bowl of dal.” The consistency is remarkable. Generations of Delhiites, visiting dignitaries, and global celebrities have eaten more or less the same meal here, in the same room, for nearly half a century. And while the world outside has shifted by way of fusion trends, new-wave fine dining, and molecular experiments, Bukhara has remained unbothered.
RAJAPANDIYAN R
41. The Bangala, Karaikudi
In Karaikudi, the heart of Chettinad, food is inseparable from history. At this heritage hotel’s dining hall, with rows of teak tables, banana-leaf plates, and meals eaten by hand, you get a direct line to the Chettiar kitchen. The masalas are still hand-pounded, the flavors layered rather than bluntly fiery, and the dishes are anchored in a sense of place. Uppu kari, with mutton, shallots, garlic, and gundu milagai chiles, is the kind of dish that defines the region. British-era croquettes, mint and potato, crisp-edged, remind you that Chettinad absorbed and patronized outside influences, too. What makes the experience unusual is its depth: meals are communal, but the learning can be personal. Three- and seven-day cooking courses take you through the logic of the spice blends, the stories behind temple offerings, and why certain flavors endure. For a cuisine often flattened into “spicy Chettinad curry” elsewhere, this table shows its full range: fiery, yes, but also subtle, inventive, and steeped in legacy.
