Mumbai Restaurants

1. Gajalee

Suburbanites love this quaint seafood joint near Juhu Beach, which compares favorably with the best coastal restaurants Fort has to offer. 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 India, including one at the High Street Phoenix Mall, so those staying down south don't have to travel too far to enjoy the fish.

2. Gajalee

3. Konkan Café

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.

4. Mahesh Lunch Home

Somewhere between Apoorva and Trishna—geographically as well as atmospherically—Mahesh is a legendary Fort seafood restaurant (but can't compare with Ankur) that 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.

5. Trishna

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.