How Delhi's food came to be
The Mughal layer: the cooking of the court and the old Muslim families of Shahjahanabad, the walled city now called Old Delhi.
What it tastes like: slow-cooked meat, bread, and rich gravies scented with saffron, cardamom and rose water.
Dum cooking: a pot sealed with dough and cooked gently over coals.
- Oldest
- Mughal court and Shahjahanabad kitchens
- Alongside
- Bania and Kayastha vegetarian cooking
- 1947
- Punjabi refugees and the tandoor
- Since then
- Food from every corner of India
- The trading families: the city's Hindu and Jain Banias and Kayasthas cooked vegetarian, with fried breads, lentils, pickles and endless sweets.
- Partition, 1947: hundreds of thousands of Punjabi refugees arrived from Lahore, Peshawar and the towns of western Punjab, and opened dhabas, sweet shops and restaurants all over the city.
- What they brought: the clay tandoor and the dishes most of the world now calls Indian food: tandoori chicken, butter chicken, dal makhani, naan and chole bhature.
- Within a generation: Punjabi food had become Delhi food.
- Everyone since: Bengali neighbourhoods with fish markets, a Tibetan quarter full of momos, and state guesthouse canteens serving the home food of Andhra Pradesh or Kerala.
- Modern Indian: some of the most inventive modern Indian restaurants in the world.
- A Jaipur surprise: how little Rajasthani food there is, and how thoroughly Rajasthani snacks and sweets have conquered the city all the same.
The dishes and their stories
- Breakfast
- Nihari, chole bhature, bedmi puri
- From the tandoor
- Tandoori chicken, naan, kulcha
- Punjabi classics
- Butter chicken, dal makhani
- Street snacks
- Chaat, golgappe, dahi bhalla
- Evening snack
- Momos
Nihari
The name: from nahar, the Arabic word for morning, because it was eaten after the dawn prayer.
- How it's made: beef or mutton shank cooked slowly overnight with bone marrow and spices, until the meat falls apart and the gravy turns thick and glossy.
- How it's served: in the lanes behind the Jama Masjid, early in the morning, with khameeri roti, a leavened bread, plus lemon, ginger and green chilli.
- Be early: by ten o'clock the pots are empty.
Kebabs and korma
Seekh kebab: minced meat pressed onto skewers and grilled over charcoal.
- Shami kebab: a soft patty of meat and lentils.
- Mutton korma: slow-cooked in browned onions, yoghurt and spices, the centrepiece of a family feast.
- Where: Gali Kababian, the lane of kebabs near the Jama Masjid, has made them for generations.
Butter chicken and dal makhani
Butter chicken: tandoori chicken simmered in a sauce of tomatoes, butter and cream.
Dal makhani: black lentils and kidney beans cooked for hours with butter and cream until velvety.
- The credit: usually given to Moti Mahal in Daryaganj, opened after Partition by restaurateurs from Peshawar.
- The argument: who exactly invented them is a question two Delhi restaurant families have even taken to court.
- Either way: both dishes went round the world from these few streets.
Tandoori chicken and breads
The oven: a clay tandoor heated with charcoal, brought by the Punjabi families of 1947.
- Tandoori chicken: marinated in yoghurt and spices and roasted on long skewers.
- The breads: slapped against the oven walls: naan, roti, kulcha and flaky lachha paratha.
- Watch it: a tandoor cook at work is one of the great small pleasures of Delhi.
Chole bhature
The dish Delhi misses most: a Punjabi breakfast and lunch favourite.
- What it is: spiced chickpeas with bhature, deep-fried leavened breads that puff into golden balloons, with pickled onions and green chillies.
- Timing: it is heavy, so eat it early in the day and don't plan a long walk afterwards.
Stuffed parathas
Where: Paranthe Wali Gali, off Chandni Chowk, where family shops have fried them in ghee since the nineteenth century.
- Fillings: potato, paneer, cauliflower, radish, lentils and, for the adventurous, banana or bitter gourd.
- On the side: tamarind chutney, pickles and potato curry.
- A good start: the lane is a natural first stop on an Old Delhi food walk.
Bedmi puri and nagori halwa
A trading-family breakfast: bedmi puri, fried bread stuffed with spiced lentil paste, with a spicy potato curry.
- Then something sweet: semolina halwa with small crisp nagori puris.
- Mornings only: sold from a handful of shops in the old city and the trading neighbourhoods.
Chaat
What it means: Delhi's tangy, crunchy, sweet and sour street snacks. Every family has a favourite stall.
Aloo tikki: a crisp potato cake topped with chickpeas, yoghurt and chutneys.
- Papdi chaat: crisp wafers with potatoes, yoghurt and tamarind.
- Golgappe: hollow puffs filled with spiced water, eaten in one bite standing at the cart.
- Dahi bhalla: soft lentil dumplings soaked in yoghurt, perhaps the finest of all.
Momos
Where they came from: steamed dumplings brought by Tibetan and Himalayan families.
- Today: Delhi's favourite evening snack, sold from carts all over the city with a fiery red chilli sauce.
- The real thing: the Tibetan quarter at Majnu ka Tila, by the Yamuna in the north.
Sweets, from jalebi to the foam that melts at noon
- All year
- Jalebi with rabri, kulfi
- November to February
- Daulat ki chaat
- Cold months
- Gajar and moong dal halwa
- Monsoon
- Ghevar
- Before Diwali
- Barfi, ladoo, kaju katli
Jalebi and rabri
What it is: fermented batter piped into hot ghee, fried until crisp and soaked in sugar syrup.
- The Delhi way: hot, with rabri, milk slowly reduced until thick and creamy.
- Where: the Old Famous Jalebi Wala at the corner of Dariba Kalan on Chandni Chowk has fried them for generations.
Daulat ki chaat
The most magical sweet in Delhi: milk and cream whipped by hand through the cold winter night into a cloud of foam.
- Finished with: saffron, sugar and pistachio.
- Where and when: sold from brass trays in the old city in the early morning, only from roughly November to February.
- Gone by noon: it melts away once the sun warms up. Reason enough to get up early.
Kulfi
What it is: dense frozen milk set in cone-shaped moulds.
- Flavours: saffron, pistachio, rose or mango.
- Old Delhi's trick: some shops freeze it inside whole mangoes and pomegranates and slice it to order.
- When: a summer treat, but Delhi eats it all year.
Winter halwas
Gajar ka halwa: red winter carrots cooked for hours in milk, ghee and sugar.
- Moong dal halwa: rich with ghee and nuts.
- At home too: the smell of carrots cooking in milk means winter in every Delhi house.
Sweets from Bikaner and Sindh
From our own state: some of Delhi's best-known sweet and snack shops were started by Rajasthani families.
- Haldiram's and Bikanervala: both founded by families from Bikaner, selling sweets from all over India.
- Bhujia: the spicy chickpea flour snack that made Bikaner famous.
- Chaina Ram: near the Fatehpuri Masjid, founded by a Sindhi family from Lahore at Partition, known for Karachi halwa and ghee-rich sweets.
Festival sweets
Before Diwali: the shops' busiest weeks, with boxes of barfi, ladoo, kaju katli and dry fruits exchanged between families.
- Monsoon: the shops stack ghevar, the honeycombed Teej sweet we are so proud of in Jaipur.
- The tradition: our journal piece on ghevar and Teej explains it.
Street food, and how to eat it safely
Eat with a guide: our Old Delhi guides grew up eating in these lanes and know which kitchens are clean and busy.
Fresh and hot: parathas, jalebis, kebabs and fried snacks cooked in front of you.
Follow the queue: busy stalls turn their food over quickly.
- Go with
- A guide who knows the stalls
- Choose
- Hot food cooked in front of you
- Avoid
- Raw salads, cut fruit, street ice
- Drink
- Bottled or filtered water
- Carry
- Hand sanitiser
- Skip what sits out: raw salads, cut fruit, and chutneys and water left standing, especially in your first days.
- Golgappe: filled with spiced water, so eat them only where your guide is confident about it, or skip them.
- No street ice: drink bottled or filtered water.
- Little and often: a tasting walk is many small plates, not one big meal.
- Rest first: leave the street food until you have recovered from your flight.
- Read more: our Old Delhi food walk has our route, and our health and safety notes have general advice.
The old city's famous names
- Karim's
- Gali Kababian, since 1913
- Paranthe Wali Gali
- Off Chandni Chowk
- Natraj
- Dahi bhalla on Chandni Chowk
- Moti Mahal
- Daryaganj, after Partition
- Indian Coffee House
- Near Connaught Place
Karim's
Where: Gali Kababian, near the southern gate of the Jama Masjid.
- Since 1913: Mughlai kebabs, korma, nihari and breads.
- The family: it traces its ancestry to cooks of the Mughal court.
- When to go: busy, simple and essential, best at lunch after a morning in the lanes.
Paranthe Wali Gali
- A lane, not a shop: each counter is run by a family that has fried parathas for generations.
- How to do it: come mid-morning, sit on the benches and order three or four to share.
Natraj Dahi Bhalle Wala
One famous dish: soft lentil dumplings in yoghurt with sweet and sour chutneys.
- Also: aloo tikki fried alongside.
- Where: a tiny counter on Chandni Chowk. Expect to eat standing up.
Moti Mahal, Daryaganj
The story: opened after Partition by restaurateurs from Peshawar.
- The claim: usually credited with butter chicken and dal makhani.
- The tandoor: its tandoor dishes have been famous for more than seventy years.
Indian Coffee House
Where: the top floor of a building near Connaught Place.
- What it is: a workers' cooperative serving coffee, dosa and egg dishes to Delhi's writers, students and politicians for generations.
- Unchanged: the waiters wear turbans and white uniforms, and nothing has changed in years.
- Why go: it is not grand, but it is pure Delhi.
Royal kitchens and community kitchens
Of all the meals in Delhi, the langar is the one our guests talk about longest. Sitting on the floor in rows, served by volunteers, eating the same dal as the person beside you, whoever they are, is one of the most moving meals in the city.
The emperors' kitchens: court chroniclers describe rice and meat perfumed with saffron and rose water, breads of every kind and fruit carried from Central Asia.
Where it lives on: in the cooking of Old Delhi, and in Lucknow, where the courtly cooking of the Nawabs grew from it.
- Mughal heirs
- Old Delhi and Lucknow
- Dum Pukht
- Lucknow's sealed-pot dishes, ITC Maurya
- Bukhara
- Frontier tandoor food, ITC Maurya
- Langar
- Bangla Sahib and Sis Ganj
- At langar
- Head covered, food in both hands
- Dum Pukht: at ITC Maurya, the most elegant taste of it, serving the slow-cooked, sealed-pot dishes of Lucknow.
- Bukhara: in the same hotel, the robust tandoor food of the north-west frontier, eaten with your hands at low wooden tables.
- The langar: the free community kitchen of every Sikh gurdwara.
- Where to share it: Gurdwara Bangla Sahib near Connaught Place and Gurdwara Sis Ganj on Chandni Chowk.
- The meal: volunteers cook and serve dal, vegetables, roti and kheer, sweet rice pudding, to anyone who comes, whatever their faith.
- How it works: you sit in rows on the floor and are served by volunteers.
- Etiquette: cover your head, wash your hands and feet, and accept the food with both hands.
- Rajasthan's royal kitchens: the maharajas' cooks perfected game dishes and laal maas, the fiery red mutton curry of the Rajputs.
- Read on: our guide to food and royal kitchens and our recipe for laal maas.
Vegetarian and Jain food
Easy for vegetarians: many of Delhi's oldest families have never eaten meat, and almost every restaurant has a long vegetarian menu.
Trading-family dishes: paneer in tomato and butter gravies, black dal, kidney bean rajma with rice, stuffed parathas, every kind of chaat and the sweets of a hundred shops.
- Vegetarian
- No meat, fish or eggs
- Jain
- Also often no onion, garlic or roots
- Vegan watch
- Ghee, butter, cream, yoghurt, paneer
- Ask for
- Jain food, by name
- South Indian: loved across the city. Saravana Bhavan in Connaught Place serves dosas, idlis and thalis.
- Andhra Bhavan: the canteen of Andhra Pradesh's state guesthouse is famous for its vegetarian thali.
- Jain rules: Jains avoid meat, fish and eggs. Many also avoid onion, garlic, potatoes and other root vegetables, because harvesting them harms small living things in the soil.
- Old Delhi's Jains: a large community centred on the temples of Chandni Chowk, whose sweet shops and kitchens are used to cooking this way.
- In hotels: simply tell the staff you eat Jain food. We let every hotel know in advance.
- Vegans: take a little care, since ghee, butter, cream, yoghurt and paneer appear in many dishes. Explain clearly, and the better hotel kitchens will cook for you happily.
All of India on one plate
Dilli Haat: the open-air craft market has food stalls from many states, from the momos of the north-east to the fish of Bengal. A fun lunch.
Chittaranjan Park: south Delhi's Bengali neighbourhood, with fish markets, sweet shops and, during Durga Puja in October, magnificent festival food stalls.
- Many states
- Dilli Haat
- Bengali
- Chittaranjan Park
- Tibetan
- Majnu ka Tila
- Regional thalis
- State guesthouse canteens
- Ingredients
- INA Market
- Majnu ka Tila: the Tibetan quarter by the Yamuna, with momos, thukpa noodle soup and butter tea.
- State guesthouses: near India Gate and on the avenues of New Delhi, their canteens serve regional thalis. Civil servants go for a taste of their mother's cooking. Andhra Bhavan's is the most famous.
- INA Market: spices, fresh produce and ingredients from across India and the world. Fascinating to walk with a cook.
- Rajasthani food: wait for Rajasthan. Our Rajasthani food guide and the Rajasthani thali guide tell you what to look forward to.
Grand dining in Delhi
Bukhara: the same short menu of tandoor kebabs, breads and its famous black dal for decades, served to presidents and film stars at rough wooden tables.
Dum Pukht: in the same hotel, quieter and more refined.
- Bukhara
- ITC Maurya, tandoor and black dal
- Dum Pukht
- ITC Maurya, quieter and refined
- Indian Accent
- The Lodhi, modern Indian
- New openings
- Mehrauli, Hauz Khas, Lodhi Colony, Khan Market
- Book
- Weeks ahead in winter
- Indian Accent: at The Lodhi, imaginative modern Indian cooking that has won it fame well beyond India.
- The hotels themselves: our guide to luxury hotels in Delhi describes them.
- A fast-moving scene: new restaurants open every season in Mehrauli, Hauz Khas, the Lodhi Colony area and Khan Market.
- Our list: we keep it current and book the right table for your evening.
What Delhi drinks
Masala chai: tea boiled with milk, sugar, ginger and cardamom. In Old Delhi it still comes in small clay cups, kulhads, thrown away after use.
How the city works: from dawn to after dinner, a glass of chai is how Delhi welcomes, bargains and makes peace.
Lassi: a sweet or salted yoghurt drink, a Punjabi favourite. Ours in Jaipur is better, of course, as our lassi in Jaipur piece explains.
- All day
- Masala chai
- Summer
- Shikanji, aam panna
- Ramzan
- Rooh Afza
- Holi
- Thandai
- Dry days
- No alcohol sold
- Shikanji: lemon water with roasted cumin and black salt, the summer cooler of the streets.
- Aam panna: a sweet and sour drink of raw green mango, made at home in the hot months.
- Rooh Afza: a bright red rose sherbet first made in Old Delhi in the early twentieth century, mixed with milk or water, especially during Ramzan.
- Thandai: milk with almonds, fennel and spices, the drink of Holi.
- Filter coffee: in the South Indian restaurants and at the Indian Coffee House.
- Wine and cocktails: Delhi's hotel bars serve fine cocktails, and Indian wines from Nashik and Karnataka are now good.
- Dry days: alcohol is not sold, so see our guide to alcohol and dry days.
A day of eating, the Delhi way
- Dawn
- Nihari or bedmi puri
- Mid-morning
- Jalebis, parathas, dahi bhalla
- Lunch
- Light, then a rest
- Teatime
- Chaat or momos at five
- Dinner
- Tandoor feast, then kulfi
Dawn, the old city
Meat eaters: nihari and khameeri roti in the lanes behind the Jama Masjid.
- Vegetarians: bedmi puri and halwa.
- In winter: a dish of daulat ki chaat before the sun reaches the trays.
- Then: a glass of tea in a clay cup.
Mid-morning, the bazaar
Jalebis with rabri: at the corner of Dariba Kalan.
- Parathas: a shared plate in Paranthe Wali Gali.
- Dahi bhalla: a bowl on Chandni Chowk, walking between each stop.
Lunch, something light
- Keep it simple: lunch at the hotel, a South Indian thali, or nothing at all.
- Then rest: the long nap our cousins insist on.
Teatime, chaat
- Around five: Delhi families stop for aloo tikki, papdi chaat and golgappe at a trusted stall.
- Or: a plate of momos from a cart.
Dinner, a feast
- The feast: tandoori dishes, black dal and fresh breads at a great Punjabi or frontier restaurant, or a modern tasting menu.
- To finish: kulfi. Then sleep, because tomorrow starts early again.
Cooking classes and table manners
Right hand only: the left is traditionally kept for other tasks, and passing food with it can give offence.
Bread as a spoon: tear it with the fingers of your right hand and scoop up dal and vegetables.
In a home: wait to be served, and expect to be offered more than you can possibly eat.
- Eat with
- Your right hand
- Bread
- Torn and used to scoop
- Enough
- Say bas, hand over plate
- Jain homes
- No meat, eggs or alcohol
- Leave a little: a clean plate gets filled again.
- At langar: cover your head, sit on the floor and accept food with both hands held together.
- Wash before and after: most restaurants have a basin for exactly this.
- Say bas: bas means enough. Say it with a smile and a hand over your plate when you truly cannot eat any more.
- Cook with a family: we can arrange a session in a Delhi home to learn a home-style dal, a vegetable dish, roti and a chutney, then eat it together.
- Hotel chefs: several of the grand hotels' chefs also offer private classes.
- Learn in Rajasthan: our haveli cooking class in Jaipur is a guest favourite, and our food lover's journey is built around Rajasthan's kitchens.
