Since 1945, Mumbaiites and visitors have been lining up outside Shree Thaker Bhojanalay’s door, sometimes even down the stairs and onto the dusty chaos of Kalbadevi’s streets, and for good reason. Their unlimited Gujarati thalis are revelatory, and the warm, efficient service ensures you never want to leave. No matter how busy it gets (seating is first-come, first-served), the movements in this energetic dining room always seem choreographed.

Why do Mumbaiites go wild for the seasonal ₹5,200, 10-course tasting menu at Masque? It’s an experience, and one that begins when you step into the elegant dining room housed in a former textile mill. The pendant lamps hanging from the high ceiling, the lab-like, glowing bar, and the metal sculpture rising from the floor create the perfect setting to impress a date, celebrate, or listen to your server tell stories about all the locally sourced or foraged produce you’re about to consume.

Among Mumbai’s many vada pav joints, 85-year-old Aram is an institution that always impresses. Wait your turn to grab the assembled-to-order snack from this sidewalk counter. While the potato filling for most vadas in the city is laced with turmeric, Aram bucks the trend, and proves that the golden powder isn’t necessary for maximum flavor. Sips of buttermilk will help break the heat as you marvel at the grand Victorian Gothic railway terminus across the street.

Flavors from six Deccan coastal regions bump into each other at this casual, earth-toned Bandra West restaurant, and the resulting mashups demand repeat visits. This city loves to combine ingredients from the region and beyond, and at Kari Apla, those pairings feel balanced, and work like they were meant to be together. We keep going back for the lush omelet moilee, the slow-cooked, warmly spiced Madurai mutton cutlets, Angamaly pork pepper roast, and bone-in kingfish wrapped in a banana leaf.

The all-vegetarian spot makes street food and chaat, but we love it for its traditional Gujarati snacks, comforting plates, and seasonal specials like vegetable-loaded undhiyu, and tangy-sweet aamras puri platter. A visit to this homey, briskly run spot, not far from Girgaon Chowpatty beach and across from a large Shiva temple, should feature any combination of these: crunchy palak cheese samosa, healthy-but-not-boring vitamin bhel, slinky panki, and fragrant, spicy Surti chaas.

Anyone who comes to this casual, always busy Lower Parel spot in a central Mumbai office complex falls unfailingly in love with it. Blame it on their playful riffs on traditional Indian dishes that amp up familiar flavors and textures. Flying off the pass are the cheese bombs known as the Eggs Kejriwal, the flaky, fragrant Guava Tan-Ta-Tan (a post-school street snack meets tarte tatin), and the Chettinad prawns Ali-Yolio, an intense study in umami.

Every time we walk through Fort’s narrow lanes—past the engineering works, tool shops, and Xerox centers—and enter Americano, we feel a fizzy anticipation, like going to meet a crush who kinda already knows we’re crushing on them. We can’t put our finger on exactly why this Italian restaurant ensures we always leave happy, but we have theories. For starters, the glowing bar belts out the city’s most creative cocktails, and the custom gold-tiled oven turns out perfect Neapolitan-style pizzas.

We’d gladly move into any of the three rooms at this all-day Kala Ghoda cafe that almost feels like you’re in Europe. The high-ceilinged main room, inspired by the OG Parsi and Irani cafes in the city, is where to meet with a friend or co-work over coffee, tea, and the best chef's salad in town. And the back wine bar feels built for big conversations thanks to heavy curtains, moody lighting, and plush armchairs.

O Pedro does for Goan grub what The Bombay Canteen does for Indian food—play with tangy, spicy, meaty, and coconutty flavors, to wow diners (both restaurants share owners and an executive chef). O Pedro feels like a sundowner at a colorful beach shack, and an escape from the tall glass-and-steel buildings of Bandra Kurla Complex’s new-ish downtown. It brings the susegad of India’s tiniest state to Mumbai—you'll eat surrounded by tented ceilings, blue and white painted pillars, and rattan chairs.

You better enjoy coconut if you’re going to Taste of Kerala. It’s all over the sadya, the ₹310, all-you-can-eat vegetarian meal served on a banana leaf. Here pumpkin, beans, and other vegetables are cooked in coconut in all its forms—light and heavy milk, rich cream, freshly grated, desiccated—to make avial, thoran, kootu, pachadi, erisnsery, kalan, and more. Rounding out this coconutty feast are dabs of pickles and mounds of rice with sambar and rasam.