Delhi has enough well-reviewed restaurants to fill a month of dinners without repeating yourself, and I’ve done that version of the city before. This time I decided, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a mild resentment toward reservation waitlists, to skip that and eat street food exclusively for four days. What followed was one of the more honest introductions to a city and considerably cheaper than the alternative.
The decision was made on day one
I landed in the early evening and took the metro to my hotel in Karol Bagh, which is not the most glamorous part of Delhi. However, this turned out to be an excellent base for this particular experiment. Walking out after dropping my bag, I found a chaat stall doing brisk business near the hotel entrance.
I had gol gappas standing at the stall, the first five in quick succession because the vendor was passing them faster than expected. I spent the remainder of the evening walking without any destination, eating at whatever looked busy. That last criterion, looking for the crowd rather than the menu or the reviews, turned out to be the most reliable guide I used across the whole four days.
Chandni Chowk, which requires more than one visit
I went to Chandni Chowk twice, which still wasn’t enough. The first visit was too early in my time in Delhi, before I’d properly calibrated to the pace and culture of the place. The second visit, on my third morning, was slower and considerably more productive.
The paratha wali gali, the lane of paratha makers near the main market, is the obvious starting point and worth the obvious crowd. The stuffed parathas here are served with white butter and achaar, for a hearty and fulfilling experience. What I found more interesting was the lane of sweet shops a short walk away, where the jalebi was being made fresh in oil and sold by weight to locals.
Natraj Dahi Bhalle near Chandni Chowk is one of those places that has been making the same dish for long enough that the recipe has become the standard against which other versions are measured. I went on the recommendation of someone I met at the hotel who meant exactly what they said. He was right.
Old Delhi and New Delhi are different countries
This is something I intellectually knew before going and only properly understood after spending time in both. The street food in Old Delhi, around Chandni Chowk and the Jama Masjid area, runs deep and specific, rooted in Mughal culinary traditions that have been adapted and refined across generations without fundamentally changing their character.
On particularly the weekends, the Jama Masjid area has its unique flavour of street foods, including kebabs, sheermal and nihari, as well as many new ones that I did not even know the names of. Seeking out a seekh kebab from the coal grill outside a shop that looked to be there for centuries has been one of my five best encounters on this entire trip.
New Delhi’s street food, around Connaught Place and Khan Market, is a different proposition with more varied influences and competitiveness due to the restaurants nearby. The chaat around Connaught Place’s inner circle is good, reliably so, but it feels like a different conversation from what’s happening in the lanes off Chandni Chowk.
What this version of Delhi actually taught me?
Eating exclusively from the street for four days in Delhi gives a unique knowledge of a city that nothing can replicate. You understand the geography of a city through crowds and aromas rather than addresses.
You understand something about how the city’s various communities have contributed to the food culture by eating in the areas where those communities are concentrated rather than in a restaurant that curates from all of them simultaneously.
Several hotels in Delhi across different areas and budgets make reasonable bases for this kind of food exploration. However, the location matters considerably more than it would for a standard sightseeing trip. Staying in or near Old Delhi, or in areas like Karol Bagh with easy metro access to Chandni Chowk, removes the logistical friction that would otherwise interrupt this expedition. That friction is worth eliminating because the best street food discoveries in Delhi happen when you’re already moving without a fixed plan, which requires a base close enough to the popular spots.