city Essentials · 10 foods
Mumbai Essentials
A considered first route through Mumbai: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all India foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
10 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Mumbai, India
Vada Pav
वड़ा पाव
Mumbai's commuter snack: a hot spiced-potato fritter in soft pav with dry garlic and green chutneys.
Mumbai, India
Pav Bhaji
पाव भाजी
Born from Mumbai's fast urban lunch culture, with buttered pav dragged through griddle-mashed vegetables.
Mumbai, India
Bhel Puri
भेल पूरी
Chowpatty's dry-crisp chaat of puffed rice, sev, chutneys and raw mango, mixed only when ordered.
Mumbai, India
Sev Puri
सेव पूरी
Mumbai chaat built on flat crisp puris with potato, chutneys, onion and a dense cap of fine sev.
Mumbai, India
Ragda Patties
रगड़ा पैटिस
Potato patties flooded with white-pea ragda and layered with sweet, hot and sharp chutneys at city stalls.
Mumbai, India
Bombay sandwich
मुंबई सैंडविच
Green-chutney bread stacked with potato, beet, cucumber and tomato, then pressed or toasted at street stands.
Mumbai, India
Bombil Fry
बोंबील फ्राय
Mumbai's delicate local bombil coated in semolina or rice flour and fried crisp before the flesh collapses.
Mumbai, India
Baida Roti
बैदा रोटी
Egg-enriched minced-meat parcel fried on the griddle, especially associated with Mumbai's late-night Muslim quarters.
Mumbai, India
Keema Pav
कीमा पाव
Spiced minced meat spooned up with soft pav, a durable Mumbai café and breakfast-counter pairing.
Mumbai, India
Prawn Koliwada
प्रॉन कोलीवाडा
Crisp red-spiced prawns tied to Sion Koliwada's Punjabi refugee kitchens, despite the coastal-sounding name.