39 Best Restaurants in Mumbai, India

India's French influence might be strongest in sunny Pondicherry, on the east coast, but with two Frenchmen at the helm, this tiny crepe joint can provide a taste of it right here in Mumbai (branches have blossomed across Mumbai, including in Bandra and Powai). Try the Méditerranée, with grilled chicken, olive tapenade, mozzarella, and tomatoes, or the Italie, with arugula, a tomato coulis, mozzarella, and oregano, or build your own crepe from an extensive list of ingredients.

The hospitality manager Syed Liakhat Hussain is one good reason to visit this brightly lit, busy, and cheerful restaurant that stays open late; the other is the authentic and well-made tandoori food. Shoot for lunch instead of dinner if you're coming by auto-rickshaw, because in the evening it's difficult to find transportation (it's far from the main hotels).

Under the same ownership as Woodside Inn, this restaurant dispenses with the pubby atmosphere to focus on simple, rustic cuisine using local ingredients. The food is excellent and reasonably priced considering how refined it is, and although it'd be nice if it had a wine license—the white interiors, open kitchen, and general atmosphere all scream "wine bar"—the excellent baked goods and mains more than make up for the lack of booze.

Popular with rich Mumbai housewives—who pack the place for lunch during the week—this Mediterranean restaurant serves gourmet food in a relaxed, tasteful setting. On the top-floor veranda of Good Earth (a designer furniture store), the Tasting Room shares its hosts' penchant for subtle Indian minimalism in warm earth tones.

This restaurant inside the local Taj is as good a place to sample the distinct flavor of Indo-Chinese—which blends powerful Indian spices and delicate Chinese preparation—as you're likely to find outside of Mumbai proper. The menu features an excellent array of teas (try the Darjeeling) and cocktails (the sweet but subtle mojito is especially nice), and unlike most of the rest of the pack in Aurangabad, the atmosphere here is quiet and refined.

Although most of the items on Trishna's seafood menu are of respectable quality, you'd be remiss not to order the much-vaunted butter garlic crab---even if that was all this legendary Kala Ghoda restaurant served, it'd be full year-round. The succulent crab is available in myriad treatments—with Indian and Western spices, green hariyali masala, black (spicier) Hyderabadi masala—and Trishna maintains the quality that's made it a favorite with tourists for more than 30 years.

Granted, Mumbai is not exactly known for its carbonara, so the bar isn't set too high, but Vetro could stack up against Italian food in any moderately sized American city. And if you're in the mood for a break from spicy food, this minimalist chic restaurant is perfect, with its wide variety of salads, pastas, and antipasti. Known for: sophisticated ambience; well-curated wine list; tight but delicious selection of Italian cheese

On the second floor of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and styled after an upscale but fairly authentic Japanese sushi joint, the wildly expensive Wasabi offers great service, a nice view toward the Gateway of India, and—we cannot emphasize this enough—great sushi. If you've got the cash, try one of the omakase menus (6 to 12 courses), which will take you through the best dishes, from whitefish carpaccio to rock-shrimp tempura to salmon nigiri, depending on what's freshest at the moment.

Opened in 2010, Ziya quickly shot to the very forefront of Indian cuisine, and although other modern, more traditionally minded restaurants (like Neel) have taken its place at the top of the heap, it remains one of the most exciting restaurants to hit India in ages. Here, traditional Indian flavors receive nouvelle cuisine treatment from chef Vineet Bhatia, the first Indian chef to win Michelin stars.