Two kitchens in one city
Born of war and the hunt: Rajput nobles rode out for days into the scrub and hills, and their cooks learned to make food that travelled.
Camp cooking: meat cooked slowly over wood, breads baked in embers, and spice blends that kept well.
The palace kitchens: when game came home, the khansamas, the royal cooks, turned it into dishes of great richness.
- Royal kitchen
- Hunting camps and palace khansamas
- Merchant kitchen
- Vegetarian, Jain and Vaishnav
- Staples
- Milk, ghee, gram flour, millet, lentils
- Cooked in
- A heavy hand of ghee
- Red and white: laal maas, red with chillies, and safed maas, white with cream and nuts, both come from this world.
- Guarded recipes: many families still keep a handwritten book of their own recipes, and guard it closely.
- The merchants' kitchen: Jaipur's traders, jewellers and Jain and Vaishnav families, most of them strictly vegetarian.
- Shaped by the desert: water was scarce and fresh vegetables rare for much of the year, so milk, ghee, gram flour, millet, lentils and dried desert beans did most of the work.
- Dried and preserved: gatte are gram flour dumplings, papad is cooked as a curry, and ker sangri is made from desert berries and beans dried in the sun.
- Humble, not simple: what looks plain on the plate is the result of centuries of ingenuity.
- Both on one table: the two kitchens meet in Jaipur, and both are cooked with a heavy hand of ghee.
- Read on: our Rajasthani food guide shows how the traditions vary across the state, and food and royal kitchens shows how we bring them to life.
The dishes you must try
- Start with
- A Rajasthani thali
- Signature
- Dal baati churma
- Fiery
- Laal maas
- No chilli
- Safed maas
- Winter
- Bajre ki roti with garlic chutney
- Try them all at once: a Rajasthani thali is a large plate with small bowls of dal, vegetables, kadhi, chutneys, breads and sweets, refilled until you beg them to stop.
- Eat it in order: our Rajasthani thali guide explains how.
Dal baati churma
What it is: the meal every Rajasthani family claims as its own. Baati are hard rolls of wheat dough, baked in embers or an oven until the crust cracks.
How it's served: broken open, soaked in ghee, and eaten with a mixed lentil dal, often of five kinds.
- Then churma: baati crushed with ghee, sugar or jaggery and cardamom.
- When: heavy, rich and perfect after a cold morning at Amber.
- How to eat it: with your fingers, breaking the baati into the dal. Our dal baati churma recipe explains the method.
Laal maas
What it is: the great Rajput curry of mutton cooked slowly with yoghurt, garlic, whole spices and plenty of dried red chillies.
- The chillies: traditionally deep red Mathania chillies from near Jodhpur, prized for their colour, until the sauce turns a dark, glossy red.
- Dhungar: in the old kitchens it was smoked at the end with a piece of hot charcoal and a drop of ghee.
- Depth, not just heat: good laal maas is fiery but about flavour. Our laal maas recipe has the story.
Safed maas
What it is: the gentle sibling of laal maas, mutton cooked in milk, cream, yoghurt and a paste of cashews or almonds, with cardamom and white pepper, kept pale.
- Where it comes from: the royal kitchens, where it was served at feasts.
- Who it suits: the dish we order for guests who love flavour but not chilli.
Gatte ki sabzi
How it's made: gram flour kneaded with spices and yoghurt, rolled into logs, boiled, sliced and simmered in a tangy yoghurt gravy.
- Why: invented, families say, for the long months with no fresh vegetables.
- Everywhere: every household makes it a little differently, and it turns up in almost every thali.
Ker sangri
The ingredients: ker is a small, sour wild berry, and sangri are the slender beans of the khejri, the tree of the desert.
- How it's made: both are sun-dried and cooked with spices, mustard oil and dried mango powder into a sharp, savoury dish that lasts for months.
- From poor to palace: once the food of the poor, now served in the finest palace dining rooms. Our ker sangri explainer tells more.
Bajre ki roti with garlic chutney
The grain: in winter, kitchens turn to bajra, pearl millet, which grows in sand where wheat will not.
- How it's eaten: thick, nutty flatbreads with a lump of white butter, jaggery and a fierce chutney of garlic and red chilli.
- Village food: and in the cold months, the best thing on the table.
Kadhi and pakodi
What it is: a yoghurt and gram flour curry tempered with cumin, fenugreek and red chilli, with soft fried fritters soaked in it.
- The Jaipur difference: tangier than the Punjabi kind.
- How to eat it: with plain rice or millet bread, for a comforting lunch.
Papad ki sabzi and mangodi
Papad ki sabzi: the thin lentil wafer, broken into a spiced yoghurt gravy at the last moment.
- Mangodi: small sun-dried lentil dumplings, cooked with potatoes or in a thin curry.
- Where to find them: ask in a home kitchen. They are rarely on restaurant menus.
Sweets, and the seasons that bring them
- Monsoon
- Ghevar
- January
- Til sweets, gajak and feeni
- Winter
- Mawa kachori and moong dal halwa
- Evenings
- Kulfi near Hawa Mahal
- Winter nights
- Hot saffron milk in clay cups
Ghevar, in the monsoon
How it's made: batter poured into hot ghee so it sets into a lacy honeycomb, soaked in sugar syrup and often topped with rabri, thickened milk, and pistachios.
- When: the sweet of Teej and the rains. In July and August the sweet shops of Johari Bazaar, LMB among them, stack it in towers.
- Part of the magic: out of season it is hard to find. Read about ghevar and Teej.
Feeni and til sweets, at the kite festival
When: around Makar Sankranti in January, Jaipur eats sesame.
- What: til laddoo, til patti and gajak, brittle sweets of sesame and jaggery, and feeni, a nest of fine fried threads soaked in sweetened milk.
- Where they're eaten: families take them up to the roofs to eat between kites.
Mawa kachori
What it is: a fried pastry stuffed with sweetened milk solids and nuts, dipped in syrup.
- Where from: Jodhpur, but loved across Jaipur, especially in winter.
- How much: one is enough for two people.
Moong dal halwa and the wedding sweets
What it is: split yellow lentils slow-cooked in ghee and sugar until golden and nutty.
- When: the sweet of winter weddings, made in enormous iron pans by halwais who stir for hours.
- At a wedding: this is the dish people will ask you about afterwards.
Kulfi, rabri and the evening milk
Kulfi: a dense frozen dessert of cardamom, saffron or pistachio, sold from carts and old shops in the walled city, especially around Hawa Mahal in the evening.
- Rabri: milk slowly reduced until thick and creamy, eaten on its own or poured over jalebis.
- Winter nights: stalls sell hot milk with saffron and a thick skin of cream in clay cups.
Street food, and how to eat it safely
Eat where it is busy: a stall with a long queue of locals turns its food over quickly, so nothing has been sitting around.
- Rule one
- Eat where it is busy
- Rule two
- Eat it hot
- Rule three
- Go carefully with raw food and water
- Drink
- Bottled or filtered water, no unknown ice
- Eat it hot: food fried or cooked in front of you is almost always fine.
- Careful with raw: cut fruit, chutneys left out in the heat and the water-filled puris of pani puri, until your stomach has settled in.
- Water: drink bottled or filtered water, and skip ice from unknown sources. Our guide to health and safety has more.
Pyaaz kachori
What it is: Jaipur's great breakfast, a round, flaky pastry filled with onions cooked down with spices, fried in large iron pans.
- Served with: tamarind and mint chutneys.
- The best-known name: Rawat Mishthan Bhandar, near the railway station, where kachoris come out in batches all morning.
- The story: our pyaaz kachori guide tells it.
Mirchi vada
What it is: a large green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram flour batter and fried.
- The taste: usually a mild chilli, crisp batter and a soft filling.
- When: a winter favourite, with tea at four in the afternoon.
Dal kachori and samosa
Dal kachori: smaller and crisper, filled with spiced lentils.
- Samosa: the familiar one, served with chutneys or a ladle of hot potato curry.
- Where: every neighbourhood has its own favourite shop.
Kanji vada
What it is: lentil dumplings soaked in kanji, water fermented with mustard seeds, for a sharp, sour, slightly fizzy kick.
- When: made around Holi, and said to aid digestion.
- How: try a small cup first.
Masala Chowk
Where: in the Ram Niwas Garden beside the Albert Hall.
- What it is: branches of well-known stalls from around the city in one clean, open-air courtyard, with tables for grazing.
- Why go: the easiest introduction to Jaipur's street food we know, and a fine evening out after seeing the lit museum.
The old addresses we trust
- Lassi
- Lassiwala, MI Road
- Sweets and thali
- LMB, Johari Bazaar
- Kachori
- Rawat Mishthan Bhandar
- Old-school dining
- Niro's, MI Road, since 1949
- Chai
- Gulab Ji Chaiwala, MI Road
Lassiwala, MI Road
What to order: a thick, creamy lassi in a clay cup called a kulhad, topped with malai, the skin of the cream.
- When: busy from morning, and sold out by lunchtime.
- Find the original: several imitators with similar names have opened nearby, so let your guide take you. Our lassi in Jaipur piece explains the confusion.
LMB, Johari Bazaar
Since the 1950s: Laxmi Mishthan Bhandar, known to everyone as LMB, has been part of Johari Bazaar.
- Three in one: a sweet shop, a vegetarian restaurant and a hotel, its counters a tour of Rajasthani sweets.
- What to order: ghevar in the monsoon, a thali at lunch, or the famous kulfi.
Rawat Mishthan Bhandar
Where: near the railway station and Sindhi Camp.
- Known for: the name most people give for pyaaz kachori, and for mawa kachori as well.
- How: stand at the counter with everyone else and eat them hot.
Niro's, MI Road
Since 1949: one of Jaipur's oldest restaurants, a favourite of the city's families for celebrations.
- The menu: North Indian, Mughlai and continental, in a dining room that has changed little in decades.
- Why go: a slice of old Jaipur that has nothing to do with tourism.
Chai on the street
Where the best tea is: small stalls with a single kettle and a queue.
- A well-known name: Gulab Ji Chaiwala on MI Road, and every lane in the walled city has its own favourite.
- How to order: ask for a cutting, half a glass, and stand with the regulars.
Royal tables and palace dining
Suvarna Mahal: at Rambagh Palace, dinner in the old royal banqueting hall, with gilded ceilings and chandeliers, is an occasion in itself.
1135 AD: inside Amber Fort, a royal Rajasthani menu in painted rooms. Lunch there after a morning at the fort is one of our favourite meals in Jaipur.
- Grandest room
- Suvarna Mahal, Rambagh Palace
- Inside Amber
- 1135 AD
- Private dinners
- Havelis and palace rooftops
- Jungli maas
- Cooked the old way, with a day's notice
- Family evening
- Chokhi Dhani
- Ask for Rajasthani: most palace hotels, including The Oberoi Rajvilas and Samode Haveli, cook an excellent Rajasthani menu if you ask.
- Private evenings: we arrange dinners in haveli courtyards and on palace rooftops, cooked by family cooks from the old recipes.
- The old meat dishes: laal maas, safed maas and jungli maas, the hunter's dish of meat with little more than ghee, chillies and salt, made the traditional way with a day's notice.
- Music late into the night: folk musicians play in the corner, and the meal stretches on. See a private dinner in a palace.
- Chokhi Dhani: a large village-themed resort on the edge of the city, where many Jaipur families take visiting relatives.
- What to expect there: a thali on leaf plates, with folk performers, puppeteers and camel rides in the grounds. Touristy, but children love it and the food is honest.
Vegetarian, Jain and special diets
Purely vegetarian: most restaurants in the walled city, and many sweet shops and thali houses show a green dot to say so.
Jain cooking: followed by many of Jaipur's jewelling and trading families, it avoids root vegetables such as onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots.
Why: pulling them from the ground harms small creatures in the soil. Traditional Jain households also eat before sunset.
- Vegetarian
- Most of the walled city, look for the green dot
- Jain
- No root vegetables, traditionally before sunset
- Vegan
- Say no ghee, no dairy
- Gluten-free
- Millet, maize, gram flour and rice
- Allergies
- Tell us before you arrive
- Ask plainly: ask for Jain food, and good kitchens will understand at once.
- Vegans, be clear: ghee, butter, milk, curd and paneer are in almost everything. Say no ghee, no dairy, and good hotels and our cooks will adapt.
- Gluten-free: easier than you might think, thanks to millet, maize and gram flour breads and rice.
- Allergies: tell us before you arrive, and we'll brief every kitchen in advance.
- Prasad: at a temple you may be offered food blessed by the deity, often a small sweet. Accept it with your right hand, and eat it or keep it respectfully.
- Temples: our guide to temple etiquette has more.
What Jaipur drinks
Masala chai: milky, sweet and spiced with ginger and cardamom, drunk at every hour and offered in every shop you sit down in.
Lassi: thick sweet yoghurt, best from a clay cup in the morning.
- Every hour
- Masala chai
- Morning
- Lassi in a clay cup
- Summer
- Chaach, nimbu pani, jaljeera
- Winter nights
- Kesar milk
- Holi
- Thandai, beware bhang
- Chaach: thin salted buttermilk with roasted cumin, the cooling drink of summer lunches.
- Nimbu pani and jaljeera: fresh lime with salt or sugar, and cumin water, for hot afternoons.
- Kesar milk: hot milk with saffron and nuts, sold on winter nights from big iron pans.
- Thandai: spiced milk with almonds and fennel, at Holi.
- About bhang: be careful if thandai is offered with bhang, a cannabis preparation. It is traditional at the festival and much stronger than people expect.
- Alcohol: served in hotels and licensed restaurants, but not on official dry days. Our guide to alcohol and dry days explains the rules.
Learning to cook it yourself
Start at the market: a haveli kitchen morning usually begins at the vegetable market or the spice shops of the walled city.
What the cook shows you: how to pick ker and sangri, which chillies to buy, and how to tell good ghee by its smell.
- In the kitchen: knead baati dough, roll gatte, and temper dal with cumin and asafoetida.
- The lesson that matters: why the order in which spices hit hot ghee matters so much.
- Then eat: you sit down together to eat what you've made.
- Your choice of menu: sessions can be vegetarian, Jain or include a laal maas.
- For families: they work wonderfully, with children rolling dough beside their grandparents.
- Book it: see a cooking class in a haveli, and our food lover's Rajasthan journey for a whole trip built around the table.
A day of eating, the way we would plan it
- 8 am
- Pyaaz kachori, hot from the pan
- Before 11
- Lassi on MI Road
- Lunch
- A full thali, then a sleep
- 4 pm
- Spice lanes and a sweet shop
- Evening
- Masala Chowk or a royal dinner
Morning, kachori and lassi
At about eight: pyaaz kachori, hot from the pan, eaten standing at the counter.
- Walk it off: through the waking bazaars of the walled city.
- Before eleven: a lassi in a clay cup on MI Road.
- If you have room: a cutting chai at a street stall, watching the city go to work.
Midday, a thali and a rest
- Lunch: a full Rajasthani thali, with dal, gatte, kadhi, ker sangri, bajra roti and a sweet or two, eaten slowly and refilled often.
- Then: do what everyone in Jaipur does after a meal like that, and sleep through the hottest part of the afternoon.
Afternoon, the spice lanes and a sweet shop
At about four: walk the spice and dry-goods shops of the walled city with your guide, smelling the chillies and the dried ker.
- A souvenir: pick up a packet of the spice mix your cook used at lunch.
- A sweet stop: whatever is in season in Johari Bazaar, then a samosa or mirchi vada with tea.
Evening, street food or a royal dinner
Casual: graze through Masala Chowk after seeing the Albert Hall lit up, and finish with kulfi.
- Grand: book the Suvarna Mahal, or a private courtyard dinner with laal maas and folk music.
- In winter: end with a glass of hot saffron milk.
Table manners, the Jaipur way
Right hand only: the left is considered unclean for food, even if you are left-handed. Cutlery is perfectly fine in restaurants.
Wash before and after: most restaurants and homes have a basin near the dining area.
- In a thali: mix a little of everything with bread or rice. Sweets can be eaten at any point, not only at the end.
- Stopping the refills: your host will keep filling your plate. Cover it with your hand and say, with a smile, that you are full. Once is rarely enough.
- Sharing: don't offer food from your own plate, and don't touch shared dishes with a hand that has been in your mouth.
- In a home: wait to be shown where to sit, and accept a second cup of tea even if you only sip it. It is a sign of respect.
- Tipping: around ten per cent in restaurants if no service charge is added. Our guide to money and tipping has details.
