Railway Pakoras, Modern Cocktails, and More: Where and What to Eat in Mumbai, According to a Longtime Resident and Expert

You could argue that Mumbai isn’t just India’s most influential food city, but one of the world’s most influential food cities. It’s a bucket-list destination for any serious culinary traveler—but you’ll get more out of your visit if you know exactly what to look for before you go.

That’s because the City of Dreams is a sometimes confounding chaos that showcases the starkest duality of any Indian metropolis—the fabulous wealth and silvery towers of the Indian tech industry butting up against the desperate poverty of ramshackle slums; the rich, oniony scents of fried pakora stalls mingling with the barnyard smells of meandering street cows.

It’s where a $100-a-plate high-end Indian restaurant, a no-beef McDonald’s (with Maharajah Macs instead of Big Macs), and a street cart offering mangoes at pennies apiece could easily share the same corner. And after centuries of chaotic growth, Mumbai’s neighborhoods and streets have become twisty and overstuffed, clogged with incessantly honking Tata cars, gaily festooned trucks and, yes, those wandering cows.

Understandably, Mumbai can be overwhelming for many first-time visitors. So we asked cookbook author and recipe developer Chetna Makan to guide us in this series on some of the great food cities of the world. While there are a million travel guides out there, our guides are the only ones that are built upon the collective knowledge of Serious Eats' profoundly talented pool of food writers, recipe developers, and chefs.

We want to make sure you get the best out of every meal, whether it’s at home or 8,000 miles away, and so we called on Makan for her insights into Mumbai and the food and dining businesses of the city she still calls home, despite now living in the UK—places that often played important roles in helping her understand and create the recipes you’ve come to love from her right here on Serious Eats.

Born and raised in the city of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh before moving to Mumbai to study fashion at university, Makan knows her way around Mumbai’s streets—she’s equally at home pointing out which street stalls to go to and which to avoid as she is in the city’s poshest and trendiest eateries. As an accomplished cook and baker, she understands the culinary landscape of Mumbai better than most. Makan now lives in England, where she won the 2016 Christmas special for The Great British Bake Off and has published several cookbooks on Indian cuisine, many inspired by her mother’s cooking. She returns to Mumbai every year to see family and friends and to make sure she’s up to date on the latest in Mumbai food culture, insights she's now sharing with you.

Bombay Sapphires

There are too many gems in the Mumbai food scene to possibly cover in a single article, but there are a few key elements to remember. First of all, what we think of today as Mumbai food or Indian food is really the result of millennia of influences, from the Maharashtrian and Parsi to the Islamic, Portuguese, and British. And as the financial and entertainment capital of India, Mumbai is where the cuisines of every other region of the subcontinent end up as well, adding their unique flavors and sensibilities to the culinary melange.

“Mumbai is like New York or London, where everyone’s coming from all over the country to make a living or make their dreams come true, so it’s a coming together of lots of different cuisines,” says Makan.

Mumbaikars are go-getters, and that nonstop lifestyle in a city that never sleeps means that most locals, when they eat out, get a bite to eat at street food vendors, often carts or stalls outside major transportation hubs or wherever the biggest crowds are. (And the crowds in Mumbai probably dwarf anything you’re used to.)

For special occasions, more formal meals, or when you just feel like sitting down as you chow down, there are restaurants ranging from fancy, Western-style cafes to places that are essentially street stalls with four walls, a roof, and a few tables and chairs. 

“It’s just got a life of its own, crazy and mad wherever you go but at the same time calming,” she says. “There’s no stillness in Mumbai, and it’s so invigorating. I’ve never been to any other place like Mumbai.”

Street Food

Vada Pav Outside Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Area, Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001

No Website

Where on-the-go New Yorkers reach for a classic bacon, egg, and cheese, the vada pav is the iconic street food for always-on-the-move Mumbaikars. A battered and deep-fried potato dumpling in a fluffy dinner roll that’s slathered in various chutneys, this burger-like sandwich is widely acknowledged as the favorite “fast food” of this city’s dwellers.

“It’s carb on carb—what’s not to love?” says Makan. “Garlicky chutney adds to the spice and strong flavor, and the coriander flavor adds to the balance. It’s such a well-balanced meal on the go—you don’t eat it on a plate or even stand, you just eat it when you’re walking.”

Naturally, the place that inspired Makan to create her own vada pav recipe is where everyone’s in constant motion: the food stalls crowded into the alleys off of Mumbai’s biggest and primary rail station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus Station). The grand Victorian Gothic Revival edifice towers over South Mumbai with its ornate turrets as everflowing crowds of citizens and tourists surge in and out at all hours of the day and night.

“Almost all the best street foods are outside these stations,” says Makan. “There are some vendors who have been there for generations, and every Mumbai person will have their different favorite vada pav stall because it used to be outside their college or outside their house or because their family’s been going to it forever.”

She urges visitors to find their own favorite vada pav vendor, following her general rules for eating out in Mumbai (see Makan's tips below). Try looking for one of the busier stalls, around which you might see a shoulder-to-shoulder ring of people in front of the strangely ordered chaos of a cart that features mountains of buns, enormous platters of potato patties awaiting the fryer, rows of bubbling pots of hot oil, and steel bowls in a spectrum of garnishes and sauces that the proprietors’ hands navigate in a blur of muscle memory.

“The whole little lane is always very packed with some of the most famous Mumbai foods; at lunchtime, it’s almost impossible to walk through—only professional Mumbai people can make it through!” she says, laughing. “You can see them making it fresh and, as soon as the batches are out, they’re gone, they’re so popular. And they’ve nailed the chutneys and will put a fried green chile between the buns, if you want. It’s the complete package.”

Bread Pakora at Mumbai Dadar Central Railway Station

Senapati Bapat Road and Lakhamsi Nappu Road, Dadar, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400014

No Website

Makan grew up scarfing down her mother’s bread pakoras for breakfast after giving them a squirt of ketchup at the family table in her childhood home in Jabalpur, but when it came to developing her Serious Eats recipe for this popular treat—a turmeric-and-chile-spiced potato sandwich dipped in a batter of chickpea flour and then deep-fried—she drew upon her memories as a fashion student, where she fueled her studies with bread pakora breaks outside of Dadar station. Dadar station is the confluence of several major rail lines, so it’s another central space bustling with people spilling in and out of the station and into the local streets, which are lined with countless small restaurants and street stalls. When she goes back, she inevitably looks for the busiest bread pakora vendor and gets in line.

“They second-fry it when you order it and give it to you nice and hot—crispy [on the] outside and with the spiced-up potatoes that have such good flavor,” she says. “It’s usually served with a nice, spicy chutney and a coriander chutney.”

Pav Bhaji at Juhu Chowpatty Beach

Mumbai, Maharashtra 400049

No Website

Walk through the seaside neighborhood of Juhu Beach and you’ll find an enclave of upscale boutiques, Bollywood celebrity homes, seaside restaurants, and the briny smell of the Arabian Sea’s waves vying for attention amidst the enticing fragrances of huge pans full of hot ghee and freshly chopped onions. The streets along the beach itself are where the action is on weekends, when they fill with children’s amusement rides. The food stalls that line the beach really come to life, exploding with shouted orders and the sizzling sounds of cumin-filled dishes being whipped up for small crowds of hungry patrons, says Makan. Most of the old wooden stalls may have been replaced with sturdier brick and mortar stores, but the festive atmosphere still draws in people from outside Mumbai who come here to walk on the sand, have a seaside meal, and just generally have a good time. (Traditionally, Indian culture places a huge emphasis on modesty, so don’t expect to see people sunbathing in swimsuits.)

The meal to have here, Makan says, is pav bhaji, a hearty curry that consists of potatoes, onions, peas, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers. It’s made quickly on enormous flat tops that bubble, steam, and sizzle the red-brown mixture as it cooks, letting you get a good whiff of the masala of cumin, coriander, cardamom, fennel, cinnamon, cloves, chiles, and more before it’s scooped onto a steel tray with a butter-fried bun.

“So you take your food and sit down at one of the benches around the stalls, or you take it down to the beach and eat with the buzz of all the people around you as you watch the water and the families walking along the beach,” says Makan.

Restaurants

Shree Thaker Bhojanalaly

Building No 31, Dadiseth Agiyari Ln, Marine Lines East, Gaiwadi, Kalbadevi, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400002

Since 1945, this unassuming and narrow family-run restaurant in South Mumbai—with peacock-shaped blue-and-yellow stained glass embedded into the plain white walls and two-person tables barely big enough to accommodate a pair of large stainless-steel platters—has served excellent vegetarian Gujarati thalis. Thalis are a popular style of meal in which your platter comes with a dozen or so small steel bowls filled with portions of various dishes, making this an ideal way to try a number of foods, along with a bowl of rice or a piece of flatbread. Makan loves to squeeze into a table with friends here even when it’s totally packed, which is often.

“You can find different curries in one place, a bit of yogurt, a potato dish, a dal, or some chickpea curry, a combination of pickles, a little bit of salad, and the pudding [dessert]—it keeps changing from time to time,” she says. From Makan’s perspective, it’s a must when visiting India. 

If it’s on the menu when you go, she says Shree Thaker Bhojanalaly is a great place to try cauliflower sabzi, cumin-infused cauliflower florets with gently caramelized onions; or kaju khatli, a diamond-shaped cashew-flour cookie that Makan describes as “dense, milky, nutty,” and not overly sweet.

Bombay Canteen

Unit-1, Process House, S.B. Road Kamala Mills, Near Radio Mirchi Office, Lower Parel,
Mumbai, Maharashtra 400013

If you’re craving a fancy meal in Mumbai, Makan suggests the award-winning Bombay Canteen, which is in Mumbai’s financial district. You’re likely to find yourself dining alongside financiers and tech pioneers as well as the city’s culinary trendsetters amid art deco glass partitions and geometric-tiled floors in a brightly lit space.

“Its look is inspired by the old Parsi cafes of Mumbai, with the beautiful, old-school wooden furniture that’s very Mumbai, but it’s very high-end,” says Makan, with dishes like khasi pork tacos with grilled sesame pork belly and naga chile salsa, or a chaat of grilled peaches, goat cheese curd, and cumin-chile Rajasthani biscuits that she calls “a modern Indian twist on traditional Indian food.”

Her favorite thing at Bombay Canteen, however, may be the jhakaas cocktail, which takes its name from the modern Mumbai slang for “awesome”—it’s made from vodka, carrot, cardamom, ginger, and pineapple.

Desserts

Badshah

152/156 Umrigar Building Lokmanya Tilak Marg, Opposite Crawford Market, Fort, Mumbai 400001

No Website

Crawford Market, which Makan calls “the heart of Mumbai,” is a crowded maze of a seemingly infinite number of merchants hawking everything from kitchenwares and rolls of textiles to jewelry and electronics. As Diwali nears every autumn, the whole market is blanketed in a vibrant snowfall of paper flower decorations and marigold garlands. As you haggle over the price of a new pot, don’t be surprised if you’re literally shoulder to shoulder with a complete stranger, also haggling for something, at the adjacent stand. It’s a seemingly timeless part of Mumbai life, and though food is not the main draw, there’s plenty for hungry shoppers who need to re-energize for their next round with a shrewd shopkeep.

“It’s the same bazaar as when I lived there 20 years ago, and there’s a lot of eating places around there,” says Makan.

One of the most famous—and the one place she makes a point of stopping by whenever she’s shopping for cloth at Crawford Market—is Badshah, specifically for the faluda, an originally Persian, fruit-laden, creamy smoothie that’s made with a scoop of ice cream and sabja (sweet basil) seeds. 

“Sometimes other people add too much ice cream or not enough seeds, but never Badshah—they always get it just right,” says Makan. “I love their rose-flavored faluda, which is so famous and so good.”

Though Badshah has been around since 1905, it’s now housed in a large, modern space with lots of glass tables—but despite its expansion, it’s been so popular for so long that you should grab any empty table you see as quickly as possible.

Tips for Eating Out in Mumbai

Eating your way through the foods in India is a wonderful experience—but it can lead to…let’s call it gastrointestinal discomfort, or even be potentially perilous if you don’t use your common sense and take certain precautions.

Here’s what Makan herself does to eat out safely in India:

• Avoid fresh produce that’s already been cut. That includes fresh vegetables, salads, or fruit that’s been cut—even if it was done so in front of you. And that’s always true even though seemingly every other colorfully decorated street cart in Mumbai is bristling over with a veritable rainbow of delectable slices of bright orange mango, glistening shards of papaya, and cracked-open pomegranates spilling out their juice-filled rubies. And it’s also true whether you’re talking about a highway cart or the fanciest restaurant in the city—Indian tap water is notoriously suspect, and even though Mumbai has made great strides in improving its water supply in recent years, it’s probably not worth the risk.
  
  So don’t succumb, even if it’s over 100 degrees out and you haven’t had so much as a single papadum since yesterday!
  
  “Buy [fruit] whole,” Makan implores you. “It’s very tempting, but there’s a lot of things involved there, and you [don’t know] where they got the water to wash the fruit and their hands.”
  
  If you do want fresh fruit in India, buy only thick-skinned fruits that haven’t been cut or peeled, then wash them thoroughly with bottled drinking water (ensuring that the cap is intact when you buy it) and peel them yourself. If you haven’t washed and peeled it yourself, don’t eat it.
  
  
• Stay away from street-side stalls selling pani puri, a treat that consists of deep-fried wheat or semolina balls stuffed with any number of fillings—typically mashed potatoes, onions, and chickpeas—and then topped with tamarind chutney, chaat masala, and chili powder. The key step in eating pani puri, though, is dipping it in strongly flavored pani puri water. The problem, like with fresh cut produce, is the water, which is often contaminated. “You’re basically drinking the water,” Makan says.
  
  The same warning goes for ice and certain frozen confections, like iced golas, essentially fruit syrup-infused shaved ice that’s molded (sometimes by hand) onto a wooden stick. “I would definitely not have the iced gola ever,” she says. 
  
  
• Wherever you see street food, you’ll never see just one cart but many, often selling the same foods. Eat at the stall with the biggest line. This isn’t just about the wisdom of the crowd—it’s also because the food at busy stalls has less time to sit out on a hot, humid Mumbai day. “It’s not like in places with colder climates, like England, where they can stay out longer in the sun,” says Makan.
  
  
• Ready to completely reverse your Western notions of healthy and unhealthy foods? Freshly cut fruits and veggies are out—and deep-fried foods are in.
  
  “I wouldn’t hesitate to eat anything fried and freshly made in front of me,” says Makan. You may notice that some stalls or restaurants seem to have a stack of already fried foods; these are usually safe, as the vendor typically fries them once early to cook them through, then submerges them in the fryer again to order so that they’re freshly cooked and get that explosively crispy outer layer. (Kind of like twice-fried french fries.)
  
  
• And despite all these warnings, do go out and try new foods. It’d be a waste if you went all the way to Mumbai and ended up having every meal at McDonald’s, so don’t be shy about trying the local cuisine.
  
  “Go with an open mind, experiment, and don’t go for naan and chicken curry when you’re there,” says Makan. “There’s so much more to Indian food than naan and chicken curry.”

Mumbai Mouthfuls

India is a bucket-list adventure for many Westerners, and its crown jewel, Mumbai, will likely be your primary destination as a lover of food. By following in Chetna Makan’s footsteps we’re confident you’ll go home and tell everyone that your culinary journey was “jhakaas!”