Maharashtra Food & Traditional Cuisine

Maharashtra contains several distinct cuisines that share a state and little else.

The Konkan coast cooks with coconut, kokum — a sour purple fruit used where others would use tamarind — and the day’s fish, in a style that shades into Goan further south.

The plateau eats a drier, largely vegetarian food of millet and sorghum flatbreads, lentils and vegetables, seasoned with goda masala, a distinctive blend with coconut and sesame that is sweeter and darker than most Indian spice mixes.

Kolhapur in the south cooks meat with a ferocity that is locally famous, using a red masala built on a chilli grown specifically for it.

And Mumbai eats on the street: a repertoire of snacks invented in and for the city, eaten standing, and sold by vendors whose families have often held the same pitch for generations.

Vada pav is Mumbai’s own: a spiced potato fritter in a soft bread roll with chutneys and a fried chilli, sold for a few rupees on every corner and eaten by everyone from construction workers to bankers. It is the city in a sandwich.

Pav bhaji, a mashed vegetable curry cooked on a griddle with a great deal of butter and served with toasted rolls, invented to feed mill workers quickly.

Misal pav, sprouted bean curry under farsan and onion with a fiery orange oil on top, eaten for breakfast and hottest in Kolhapur and Nashik.

Puran poli, a flatbread stuffed with sweetened lentil paste, made at festivals.

Kolhapuri mutton in tambda red and pandhra white versions, served with a separate cup of spiced broth.

Also: bombil, the Bombay duck fish, fried; sol kadhi, a pink coconut and kokum digestif; and Konkan prawn curry.

Mumbai street food is an institution with its own geography: Chowpatty and Juhu beach for bhel puri after sunset, Mohammed Ali Road during Ramadan for kebabs and desserts through the night, and vada pav stalls everywhere.

The dabbawalas deliver around 200,000 home-cooked lunches across Mumbai every day using a colour-coded system and the suburban rail, with an error rate so low it has been studied by business schools. They are worth watching at Churchgate at midday.

Irani cafes — the Zoroastrian-run corner cafes with bentwood chairs, mirrors and lists of rules on the wall — are a declining Mumbai institution serving bun maska and Irani chai.

Thali on the plateau is served unlimited and refilled without asking; a raised hand stops it.

Street food caution: the busy stalls with high turnover are the safe ones.

Maharashtra is the centre of the Indian wine industry, and it is a genuine and growing one.

Nashik, about four hours from Mumbai at around 600 metres on the plateau, produces the majority of Indian wine. The altitude moderates the heat, the soil is volcanic basalt, and the dry winter allows a clean harvest; the challenge is that the tropical climate lets vines fruit twice a year, so growers deliberately suppress the monsoon crop to concentrate the winter one. Sula, founded in 1999, effectively created the modern industry and the wine tourism around it; several dozen wineries now operate in the valley with tasting rooms, restaurants and guest rooms.

Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc do well, along with Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and increasingly sparkling wine.

Feni and palm toddy are the Konkan coast’s traditional drinks.

Note that alcohol taxes are high, some districts are dry, and Maharashtra technically requires a permit to drink, which hotels supply as a formality.