The restaurants putting India’s regional food on the map

If your idea of regional Indian food still begins and ends with butter chicken, dosa, and biryani, consider this your sign to expand the map. India's food culture gets considerably more interesting once you move beyond the greatest hits, and restaurants across the country are digging into the recipes, flavours, and techniques that don't always make it onto the mainstream menu.

Think Awadhi kebabs in unexpected forms, village-style Karnataka cooking, Tamilian comfort food, and Punjabi recipes that crossed borders. These are the places making regional food feel anything but predictable.

Vayu, Hyderabad

Vayu is taking diners on a tour of India without asking them to leave its rooftop. The menu travels from Andhra and Kerala to coastal Karnataka, Punjab, and beyond, with gongura mamsaam, kundapur ghee roast, meen pollichattu, and Kolhapuri mutton sukka. The cocktails follow suit, using ingredients like gongura and kokum in playful serves. It’s regional Indian food with a decidedly social, contemporary setting.

Tanjore Tiffin Room, Mumbai

Here is where you'll find Tamil food that feels like it came straight from a Tamilian kitchen. The menu moves through Chettinad, Madras, and coastal flavours, with Madras mutton curry, Chettinad chicken biryani, paruppu vada, and Marina Beach sundal. There’s even a rowdy rasam cocktail. It’s familiar, comforting, and unfussy, which might be exactly what you want from a Tamilian meal. 

XIII, Lucknow

At XIII, Awadhi food gets a playful makeover, with the concept and menu designed by hospitality firm The Bar Consultants (TBC). Galauti arrives as a pâté with house sheermal melba toast, kakori is tucked inside an arancini, and a saffron sphere dramatically opens when warm rabri is poured over it. The cocktail menu is equally inventive, with choices like a ghee-washed shaam-e-awadh old fashioned to a jamun salted negroni highball.

Ikk Panjab, Delhi

Ikk Panjab looks beyond the usual Punjabi restaurant greatest hits, digging into the food of pre-partition Punjab instead. Think matthi chole, gosht beliram, patiala kibti chicken, atta chicken, and tarn taran di jalebi rabdi. The restaurant pulls from home and royal kitchens across the region, making Punjab feel much bigger than its familiar butter chicken-and-naan shorthand.

Bonne Femme, Kolkata

Bonne Femme lets Bengali flavours travel. The menu pairs familiar regional ingredients with dishes from elsewhere, resulting in combinations like gondhoraj chicken stroganoff, butter chicken with smoked bondel cheese and chicken cordon kiev with aloo chokha. Alongside these experiments are Bengali staples such as kosha mangsho and chicken dak bungalow. It’s less about sticking to a rulebook and more about seeing just how far Bengal’s flavours can go.

Kona Kona, Mumbai

Kona Kona is less about sticking to one region and more about taking a tour around India, one bar snack at a time. The Andheri bar brings together Himachali mushroom siddu, Goan chicken kafreal poie, Bihari nimki, Darjeeling jhol jhal momos, and Alleppey raw mango curry, alongside its cocktails and chakhna. It’s a suitably eclectic reminder that regional Indian food doesn’t have to stay in its own lane

Malgudi Mylari Mane, Bengaluru

Malgudi Mylari Mane is making the case that Karnataka food goes well beyond dosa. The restaurant digs into naati cooking from the state’s villages and smaller towns, with mutton paya soup, mutton pulav, mutton chops, kaima unde saaru, and NH 75 mutton curry on the menu. Familiar comforts like thatte idli are still around, but the real draw is discovering a side of Karnataka cuisine that rarely gets the spotlight.

Kikli, Delhi

Chef Amninder Sandhu’s Kikli treats Punjabi food like an archive, bringing together childhood recipes, village cooking and royal dishes, from katlama and chapli kebab to naturally fermented mushki roti and atte di chiddi. There’s even a traditional hara used for slow cooking, while kunda danda chutney sits alongside contemporary cocktails. Recipes that crossed the border in 1947 can still taste like home, a sentiment that now extends to Kikli’s newer Gurugram location.

So, the next time you’re tempted to order the same old butter chicken, consider taking the scenic route instead. These restaurants are a reminder that regional Indian food is less a fixed list of classics and more an enormous, constantly evolving map, and there’s plenty left to eat your way through.

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