69 Best Restaurants in Mumbai, India

The charming former owner of this old, dingy, and terribly atmospheric Irani restaurant had an obsession with the British royal family and thus pictures of royalty grace the restaurant's peeling walls. Unfortunately, the old gentleman has since passed away, but the restaurant has retained its charm as well as its fantastic chicken or mutton berry pulao, with rice, gravy, and dried fruit.

You'll have to drive a bit to reach Buddi Galli (a lane selling a bunch of local, meat-forward street food), but once you reach it, your taste buds will thank you. Try the naankhaliya, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar's slow-cooked beef or mutton curry, fried tikki kebabs, and if you come during Ramzan, the harees (a hearty meat and lentil stew). If you can, go after sunset, when the lane truly comes alive.

A trip to India can represent an opportunity for travelers to test the ropes at living vegetarian for a while (veg options constitute literally half of every menu here), but few major restaurants in the city have mastered all the possibilities of vegetarian like the charming Burma Burma. Ankit Gupta, the owner, is half Burmese, and demands authenticity, so short of a separate flight to Myanmar itself, you're not likely to find dishes as skillful as these in many other places; the restaurant also serves excellent teas (but no alcohol).

Dingy—but not dirty—Churchill specializes in British-style comfort food (e.g., starchy and simple roast beef and gravy with steamed veggies and mashed potatoes), and its red-and-white vinyl interior fits the food. The desserts are some of the best Mumbai has to offer—at any given time you'll find five kinds of chocolate cake (brownie, truffle, you name it), and five kinds of cheesecake in the dessert case.

Always packed, Mondy is a great place to grab an ice-cold Kingfisher draft and watch the crowds roll in—though unlike nearby Leo's, Mondy's doesn't have a full liquor license. Avoid the characterless air-conditioned room and instead post up at one of the cramped tables in the main space, where the jukebox plays at full blast and the walls are covered with cartoon murals of Mumbai life.

One of the city's most popular dining and drinking spots, the roomy, open, yet strangely utilitarian Café Zoe serves European and continental breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners, and drinks. Depending on what time you arrive at this converted industrial compound, the crowd may include young parents feeding their one-year-old daughter sweet bites of Belgian waffles, local journalists shoveling down hot minestrone soup while using the free Wi-Fi, dating couples sharing a romantic dinner of seafood and pasta, or young partygoers drinking cocktails in a dim but sensuous atmosphere after midnight.

Once the exclusive domain of a members-only club, Kathiwada City House has opened a tiny corner of its space to the gawking public. Circle Sixty Nine, a small eatery by restaurateur Aditi Dugar (who also opened Masque), serves European-inspired fare to a view of the tiny terraced courtyard.

This very popular vegetarian restaurant, begun in 1958 and now part of a chain, is a convenient address in the city for delicious chana bhatura: the piping-hot, football-size puris made from white flour and yeast are served with spicy chickpeas and raw onions and lemons. The cheesy nachos and deep-fried corn cheese balls are good snack options, especially when washed down with their popular ice cream soda. It's so popular on weekends that the staff have initiated curbside pickup for the hungry hordes left waiting on the road for a seat in the restaurant.

Classic no-frills North Indian food draws many Middle Eastern vacationers to this eatery; it also has outlets throughout the United Arab Emirates, though this one's the flagship. It's loud and bustling—not the place for a romantic dinner—but the real reason to come is the top-quality chicken and mutton.

For decades the food stalls in front of Elco Market have been serving some of the best—and cleanest—vegetarian street food Mumbai has to offer, and they were doing so well that the owners were able to open this two-floor restaurant inside the market, offering essentially the same food. One of Mumbai's most iconic experiences is standing by the pani puri vendor, as he stuffs boiled potato, sprouts, mint-fresh water, and sweet chutney into an eggshell-thin sphere of fried flour and hands it to you in a plate woven together with leaves.

A convenient place to stop for a cold drink and a hot samosa. The outdoor patio has fruit trees (home to many monkeys) and pink bougainvillea flowers. The restaurant closes before the caves do.

Suburbanites love this seafood joint near Juhu Beach, which compares favorably with the coastal restaurants in Fort. The Phoenix Mall branch is sleek and modern, while the original Vile Parle location is a bit tacky and dated but better regarded (as most originals are).

There are other branches across Mumbai, but they are all in the northern suburbs.

Set in the middle of the city’s racecourse, Gallops has a classic, consistent, North Indian and 1970s-style "continental" European menu. To book the alfresco section---a rarity in Mumbai---you'll have to call in advance; it's usually kept closed, and opened for special parties or receptions.

A genteel throwback to the continental dishes of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, Gaylord opened in the 1950s and has consistently fed the city's sense of nostalgia by eschewing faddish culinary crazes and sticking to old-fashioned Indian and European dishes like lobster thermidore; it also has a bakery that sells bread, pastries, and other dainties. There is an opulent air-conditioned section, but you want to sit outside on its pretty patio, fringed with a white-latticed boundary.

A Mumbai outpost of the Michelin-starred London original, this Bandra haunt is worth a visit for those who absolutely must have a fancy Chinese dinner. Even then, it's likely only worth dining here if you're in Bandra already.

Inexpensive, shabby, and frankly a bit of a hole-in-the-wall, Hotel Deluxe (neither a hotel nor deluxe) has long been the default choice of eatery for homesick Keralites. The menu is vast, but tunnel your vision towards the special section; anything on there is bound to be excellent.

Though the name implies something quite different, this restaurant actually serves Pan-Asian food and attracts a mix of couples and families out for a special occasion. A bubbling pond with wooden statues greets customers to an interior decked out with understated Asian accoutrements—bamboos and various Asian scripts on the walls.

Walk straight out of Kailasa Cave (number 16), past the umpteen souvenir stalls on your right, and you'll see the Hotel Kailas with its attached restaurant, Kailas: it's a simple cafeteria-style restaurant serving basic vegetarian Indian food until 9:30 pm. The food isn't great, but it's a hygienic spot, and a bit nicer than the Ellora Restaurant.

Styled as an haute version of a typical Mangalorean home—all red clay and bright green—Konkan is in the Vivanta by Taj hotel (still "Taj President" to taxi drivers). It does all the chow your average home might serve, but it's more refined, with cleaner flavors and elegant presentation (food is served on copper thali plates lined with banana leaves), plus it has the added advantage of being one of the few coastal restaurants to offer a great, if expensive, bottle of wine.

Once bustling Lalbaug was the beating heart of Mumbai's mill lands and center of its radical leftist political culture. The mills have since folded, but the area is still home to a clot of eateries serving excellent Maharashtrian cooking, and among the best is Ladu Samrat, an unfussy, eminently affordable, but rather threadbare restaurant serving homey vegetarian Maharashtrian snacks.

When it defiantly reopened just four days after the first shots of the 2008 terrorist attacks were fired and 10 people were killed, the crowds were so big the police had to shut the place down all over again (the ownership has preserved bullet holes from the attack on its upstairs windows for people to see). Order a bottle of ice-cold Kingfisher beer to wash down the hearty, typical bar food—chicken tikka, french fries, that kind of thing, or go with the Chinese food that is actually the better bet.

You’ll have to navigate Bandra’s warren of lanes on foot to reach The Lovefools---the perfect way to prime your appetite for Chef Sarita Pereira’s experimental cooking (her influences swing from Scandinavian to Japanese to Indian). The bonus is that you can sit in air-conditioned comfort in an old-fashioned heritage bungalow in Bandra or eat alfresco in its charming little courtyard, a rare pleasure in Mumbai.

Located at ITC's Rama International, this restaurant has plenty of North Indian as well as local Maharashtrian dishes on offer. Get the chef to make you the local special, the meaty naan khaliya, a throwback to the Mughal era. The decor is elegant but unremarkable.

At this airy cafe full of sunlight, you can find comforting breads and French baked goods, as well as an assortment of savory breakfast items. There are branches in Lower Parel and Bandra.

This well-known seafood restaurant attracts the office-lunch crowd as well as packing them in during the evenings. Some of the character was stripped out of the place after it decided to go upscale, and the floor-to-ceiling marble might be a bit much, but the traditional Mangalorean seafood dishes are reliably good.

Serving the best fruit-flavored ice-cream in town, Natural—milky, creamy—seems to be everywhere. All of the ice cream is made with fresh fruit or nuts, and contains no preservatives; highly recommended are the tender coconut, roasted almond, or seasonal Indian fruit flavors like cinnamon-tinged chikoo (a caramel-flavored fruit also known as sapodilla), custard apple, or mango.

A short walk from the blue Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue is The Nutcracker, a tiny, pretty vegetarian restaurant with pink and white bougainvillea tumbling down its wooden windows, and mosaic tiled floors. Go for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner), and order any of the delicious egg concoctions.

Rarely packed even on Saturday night, Oh! Calcutta serves the city's best (mustard-heavy) Bengali food in upscale surroundings of dark wood set off by simple black-and-white archival photos from the British Raj. The seafood is exquisite, and if it's all too unfamiliar, defer to the waiters—some of the best in the city—to choose something, based on your specifications.

This no-frills eating establishment used to sit across a tank (Gibbet’s Pond) which was once the stage for the city’s grisliest public hangings. The fifth-generation owners believe it to be one of Mumbai’s earliest eating establishments, but whether it is or isn’t, their trademark dish---puri bhaji (spiced vegetables scooped up with fried bread)---has certainly stayed consistently tasty over the decades. Its clientele includes everyone from Uber drivers to powerful city politicians.

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.