Banaras eats on a schedule, and the schedule matters more than the address. Turn up at the wrong hour and the famous shop is shut or serving something else entirely. This is the order we walk it.
Morning: kachori sabzi, standing up
Breakfast here is fried and it is early. Kachori with a thin spiced potato sabzi, eaten off a leaf plate while standing in a lane too narrow for a car, usually with a jalebi straight from the pan afterwards. Most of the good places are finished by half past ten.
Midday: tamatar chaat and its relatives
Varanasi chaat is its own school - softer, sweeter and more heavily spiced than the Delhi version. Tamatar chaat is the one to order first and the one visitors are most surprised by, served hot in a clay cup that you break afterwards.
Evening: lassi, paan and, in winter, malaiyo
Thick lassi in a clay cup, topped with so much malai that it needs a spoon. Then paan, which in this city is a full ritual rather than a mint. And if you are here between December and February, malaiyo - a saffron milk foam collected from overnight dew that exists for about six weeks and then vanishes until the next winter.
- Kachori sabzi with jalebi, before 10 a.m.
- Tamatar chaat, served hot in a clay cup
- Banarasi lassi with malai, thick enough for a spoon
- Baati chokha, if you want one proper sit-down meal
- Malaiyo, December to February only
Frequently asked
Generally yes, with sensible rules - hot food cooked in front of you, busy stalls with high turnover, bottled water only and no cut fruit. Our guides know which corners they eat at themselves and will steer you to those.
Extremely. Varanasi is overwhelmingly vegetarian and much of the old city is strictly so. Finding meat is harder than avoiding it, and Jain food can be arranged with a day of notice.
