Poulomi Deb

Editor's note: This guide lists the very best places to sample Bengali food across Delhi, Gurugram and Noida – from the OG restaurants serving hearty Bengali fare to shops serving sweets and even supper clubs putting a spin on traditional fare. The reason this guide goes beyond just restaurants is because some of the best food's found in the most unconventional of spaces. This guide also serves as a comprehensive list of places to visit during Durga Puja each year.  There are certain things to be known about probashi Bengalis, the ones who live outside West Bengal. We must don surprise when we come upon one another in the city. We call in sick each year as Durga Puja approaches, as though the body has its own employment calendar. We will sneer, with great finality, at anyone who dares to question the potato in our biryani or malai in our prawn. The food’s our ultimate cure for homesickness, after all: preceded by fish chop and kasundi, followed by a long, drawling nap.  Bengalis in Delhi: A history  CR Park may be the bustling mini-Kolkata of the capital today, but it was not here that the first recorded Bengali resident lived, nor the first Kali Bari. For that, look north. As India’s capital shifted from erstwhile Calcutta to Delhi, so did government officials from Bengal. By the 1920s and 30s, enclaves had already carved themselves into Kashmere Gate, Daryaganj and Karol Bagh, where the city's first Bengali clubs and sweet shops opened their doors.  Why CR Park is the best

Not very long ago, exercising in Delhi meant a resigned jog around the colony park or a gym membership that peaked on January 3. On any given Sunday now, Delhi parks are doubling as Instagram content studios. Mornings see the Noida Expressway service road literally overtaken by runners in matching kits, and the Aravalli foothills are full of Gurgaon-ites who have discovered, somewhat to their own surprise, that they enjoy the outdoors.  Is this part of a new culture? I think it's just the chronically online iteration of our desire to touch grass – community in this form has ridden the boomer yoga wave, the millennial football-in-the-evening, the Gen Z looksmaxxing – it’s really something that I hesitate to call a trend. The appeal isn't necessarily about becoming an athlete, either. These clubs have made exercise feel less like another item on the self-improvement checklist and more like a reason to leave the house. A Sunday morning run can become breakfast with strangers, and a cycling group can turn a familiar stretch of NCR into a route you’ve never noticed. And there’s plenty to choose from. Delhi NCR now has running clubs for beginners and marathon hopefuls, cycling groups that range from leisurely rides to serious road training, and hiking and trekking communities that head out towards the Aravallis and beyond. Some are competitive, some are resolutely social, and some seem to exist primarily because nobody wants to make plans one-on-one anymore. Whether you want to r

October has a way of emptying wallets even before Diwali arrives: pandal-hopping, festive outfits, gifts, the lot. So, this week's calendar, for October 12-18, leans toward the sensible end of the spectrum. The cheapest plan costs nothing at all. Craft Week at Pragati Maidan is free through Tuesday, and Mandi House's BRICS International Theatre Festival, with troupes from Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Singapore and Vietnam, prices each play separately. A ticket to Hornbill, Nagaland's December festival previewed with a band battle at Talkatora, is barely a splurge on Friday or Saturday.  The BFR Sound System's tenth anniversary at Shaheedi Park on Sunday is a modest ticket for a vinyl-only dance floor. Stretch a little further and you can choose between five nights of garba at Purana Qila with Salim-Sulaiman or Raftaar's Saturday set at the Major Dhyanchand National Stadium. And if you've somehow got something left, the DP World India Championship at Delhi Golf Club is the week's priciest ticket, with Rory McIlroy and defending champion Tommy Fleetwood slated to play. 

My day begins with workplace conflict. How the hell does one pace their booze for a drag show that begins at 1 am? A tribute to Dolly Parton, in Delhi’s hottest of queer bars Kitty Su, no less. Nitya and I find ourselves in a back-and-forth all afternoon. This would be her first drag show ever. Serious work’s at hand. An espresso martini will keep us awake! No, I don’t like espresso martinis. I’ll drink something else. Let’s do (gatekept regular spot). That’s too far man. I’ll go wherever in CP. I’ll go to Mars. No we are not doing beer!!! It takes until 9pm to agree on (gatekept regular spot) and scram. It doesn’t take long for Nitya, bedazzled up herself without any prior instruction, to get over the fact that I’ve chosen to wear a blazer over a leather skirt and thick eyeliner. We pick our cocktails in a quick consultation, take to the dance floor, and eventually, find ourselves perched on the outdoor stairs to the terrace… trying to chase hints of winter in the Delhi air. ‘I feel like it’s going to be pink and loud with glitter everywhere when we reach. The show will obviously be late because queens need to dress up and get ready to lip sync, right?’ She pauses to drink. I neither confirm nor deny. When we reach The LaLit a little after midnight, we are greeted by silence. The five-star-hotel entrance sort of silence. It is broken only by Nitya’s wondering if we’ve reached far ahead of time. We are soon escorted to Kitty Su through a small door near the dining area. The t

Googly-eyed, with tongues occasionally flopped out. A swing of an engraved guitar into the air. At least four beer-stained chairs. Our throats are straining as something that sounds vaguely close to words hurls out. Oh well. It’s easy to let go. We’re all already slamming into each other, those of us in the ironic eye of the storm, the moshpit. But the second a glass breaks, or a kid wearing an Iron Maiden is trying to step on the stage, we break away, look out for them, and return.  What are we really doing at an ‘underground’ metal gig? Here’s a quick definition: distorted, screaming music, mostly heavy on every instrument used. Some call it evil. But those folks haven’t been part of a crowd of adults who’ve sat in a seconds-long formation to row a boat, made out of air, to the sound of Viking melodic metal on the floor. Nor have they been in happy tears, managing just enough breath for a Slipknot karaoke afterparty, at 2am. It’d been a while since I hit a metal gig, and as a regular goer of many years across cities, I kid you not: I felt something like comfort. Metal can be… childish. It’s vulnerable. You get creative with the insults, and then you grin. This was Delhi Underground Fest 2, part of the roaming Sick Tour by Kolkata Metalheads at Siyah Arthouse in Saket. It turned out this would be one of Siyah's last gigs. Metal’s not an easy scene to run – it’s a dog-chase of venues, special sound setups, licenses, the works – but Delhi's community of entrepreneurs and musi

Wake up long before September ends, please. We might not be talking about it yet, but the winter lull will be sooner than you think. Not that it’d stop us – but this month’s calendar is especially jam-packed with a bunch of stuff. Start with the music, because there's a lot of it. Ankur Tewari lands at The Piano Man touring Mr Faarigh, nine new tracks that lean into longing and travel the way his writing always has. Over at The Dome, inside a ballroom with fifty foot ceilings and enough Art Deco detail to make you forget you're in a hotel, an evening of Rafi classics is being staged with live vocals and a full ensemble. Purple Cassette closes out a nationwide tour on home turf with a garage rock set. And if you'd rather lose a few hours to something stranger, Mandragora's psychedelic house sets. The sheer scale of South Side Story will also happily oblige with some more range. The theatre asks for more patience this month, and rewards it. Virasat, staged at Sunder Nursery, spends four generations watching a family come apart, through cooking and cleaning and the small negotiations of daily life rather than any single dramatic moment. Malavika Sarukkai does something even rarer with Dance with Space: instead of just performing Bharatanatyam, she talks you through how it's built. Solanki, a former maths teacher who now makes a living being funny about fatherhood and gym delusions, brings his set to Kamani for anyone who'd rather laugh. Want to go somewhere that doesn’t involve

Over the past half-decade or so, much has changed in the way we live, work and play in our cities. It wasn’t too long ago that lockdowns rendered the city centre all but obsolete and brought to the fore the vital role of our immediate neighbourhoods and communities.  Now, the balance has been restored. Our local neighbourhood remains fundamental: mini-villages where the barista knows your order, where local restaurants, bars and indie businesses thrive, and where communities continue to band together for all sorts of cool stuff, from art walks and day festivals to creating greener streets and pedestrian-friendly spaces. And six years on from the pandemic, the city centre is seeing a renaissance, with brand-new music venues, galleries, coffee shops and more opening up and welcoming a new generation of hybrid workers and the back-to-the-office crowd (and, of course, city-breakers and tourists).  On this year’s list of the world’s coolest neighbourhoods, you’ll see this mix play out. There are downtown hubs and seaside strips, homely enclaves and warehouse districts, all nominated by our global network of on-the-ground experts. This lucky lot spends their time exploring every corner of their hometowns to discover the best places to eat, drink, shop and hang out right now, so you can trust we know what we’re talking about. To decide the final ranking, a panel of Time Out editors vetted each neighbourhood against a range of criteria, including food and drink, nightlife, unique loc

Beware, and check in on your family and friends. Statistically, one in five people in Delhi is a big old snob who will talk you through the difference between a washed and natural process Ethiopian coffee. We're well past India's third wave of coffee, of course – it's no longer something that snuck up on us, nor is it an afterthought to chai. Today, we've split in every direction: specialty brews, coffee experience centres, protein coffee, decaf, coffee with a shot of whiskey, coffee matcha – name it or don't, you'll find it. Every month brings a new trend. Delhi is the last city to shy away from anything that’s, well... strong. Whether coffee for you is a morning non-negotiable, a reluctant catch-up-with-friends vehicle, or a flavour and cream experiment, this guide runs on one very simple principle, for your sake and mine. And that is: is the coffee good?

The bookstore culture's not what it used to be, it's true. But come on – this is Delhi. Folks quote centuries-dead poets over beer at dimly lit bars. With a straight face. How could it not be a city of readers? The writing legacy here is absurdly rich – so rich that Delhi's housed and nurtured Meer Taqi Meer's romanticism, Khushwant Singh's bawdiness and Arundhati Roy's meteoric rise all within a single millennium. If that kind of history can't keep e-commerce book-shopping at bay, nothing can. Which is why bookshops in this city still manage to hold considerable sway over readers, and a lot of that has to do with the owners themselves, who've quietly shaped literary trends through the way they curate.  I’ve realised on my bookstore rounds in and around Delhi that browsing can be a wildly different experience depending on where you visit. Each shop here has its own die-hard fanbase and, strangely enough, several are even used to establish bragging rights over fellow readers. Such is the cult of personality. So if you're confused about which bookshop suits you best, here's a guide to point you in the right direction.  

It’s an exceptionally rare day when a film isn’t being screened somewhere in Delhi out of someone’s good will. Tickets to screenings at many of these beloved spots are free or nominal; often, even in the city’s busiest or oddest hours, they draw seriously dedicated viewers and intense conversations. You really don’t have to wait for a classic old film to be digitised online or prove yourself as a buff to be let into some exclusive club. Chances are what you want to watch – and what you didn’t know you wanted to watch – are being screened, like, yesterday, with friendly people at their helm. For years now, we’ve been staying till credits roll in spots and clubs across the capital. This guide rounds up some of the best.

Through the humidity and the half-hearted rain, Delhi's at it with the overcommitting again. Jokes and laughter carry our city through a lot. Kunal Kamra's touring his newest set through two cities back to back, still mining current affairs for punchlines nobody else will touch, while Brocode is betting six straight hours of stand-up can hold a room's attention – ambitious, though not unheard of for this city's appetite. Varun Grover's take on mortality and a hypothetical ketchup apocalypse might be the odder pitch of the two, but it's the kind of odd that tends to be exactly what makes this city so endearing. Of course, there’s no Delhi without its soft spots. Punjabi folk kneels into something more electronic, four languages flutter in through one musical evening, jazz keeps a steady beat going… a beat that only grows louder when you bring devotion into the mix, with Bollywood, a live band, and bhajans packed into another night. The BWF World Championships return to Delhi for the first time since 2009. Dastkar's monsoon mela is also reopening its tents as a Turkish food fest and a Korean pop-up compete for your dinner plans. Here's everything happening in Delhi this August. We suppose it won’t slip away. The best of August in Delhi at a glance:   Best music show by an emerging artist: Rashmeet Kaur’s Punjabi folk Best for shopping: Dastkar Monsoon Mela Best comedy show: Standing Up by Kunal Kamra Best sporting event: BWF World Championships | Badminton Best for bites:

Delhi in July is no joke (except for the literal onslaught of format-pushing comedy shows across the city). There’s a glimmer of hope for patches of rain, but you wouldn’t tell it’s just a glimmer from everything that’s going on across the city this month.  Theatre and art are holding their own. Rajat Kapoor's darkly comic Macbeth – Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, and enough meta-theatricality to give a literature professor a headache. Taj Mahal Ka Tender and Krishna Katha are doing their own interesting things a few doors down. Art that wants you to stay for hours, talk without filling your mouth with too much theory, and patiently flip through pages. Music fills in almost everything else. Jasmin Sandlas for the chaos. The Nizami Brothers for their devotion. Abish Mathew for the people who need their comedy to occasionally break into song. And you’ve got a few interesting organic markets and festivals too. But yes – the comedy scene is this month's real story. The familiar names are back – Abhishek Upmanyu, Urooj Ashfaq, Manik Mahna – but so is something harder to name: a restlessness with the standard one-person-microphone setup. This month has dating shows that pull strangers from the crowd, breakup comedy built on audience participation, and a two-hander from Delhi's own open-mic alumni.  Here's everything happening in Delhi this July.

The second time I hit Shack, a block party had taken over Shahpur Jat from their little white and yellow corner. The techno slammed right into their next-door one-room art gallery and up their first floor, where I must confess I was eventually found dancing like a maniac (that too with a friend who’d, by and large, sworn off clubbing). Mind you, this was in daylight, and free. The phrase ‘coffee rave’ was nowhere to be found. Only the bickering next to the entrance was capable of taking over the music – the ground floor of the cafe, which is where the very lively co-owner Abhishek is most likely to spot you. The first time I was at Shack, the only sound was us chattering away with him, the whirr of coffee machines, the clinks of cups. The place, after all, is ‘meant for bootstrappers’. The plain, warm tones of it exude chill. ‘We don’t need to know where the onion or the tomato in our biryani came from to know it’s good. So we don’t need to know what ‘notes’ are in coffee to know it’s good.’ This two-liner came belting out of Abhishek as he poured out a cup with one of their oldest coffee machines, bending his head over every steady detail. I didn’t think such a combination of phrase and action was humanly possible.  The coffee and food at Shack Coffee Co The coffee menu’s short by Delhi standards, but by and large, strong. We tried both their blends (roasted in-house) in a pour over and an espresso respectively. You’ll want to do the prissy thing of sniffing and gulping thes

Selva landed in Aerocity with the self-professed goal of expanding Delhi’s idea of Latin American cuisine from pre-mixed tacos and spice-dusted mayonnaise for cheese to flavours plucked from both forest and land. Sarthak Sidana, who founded it, says the freshness of South America’s ingredients while visiting his brother, above all, that inspired Selva.  Well, this goal’s been dipped in before, most notably by Eldeco Centre’s Latoya in Saket. Luckily, no one in the capital gives a crap about who’s first. And Selva makes sure it’s never pigeonholed into one showman personality. The first phrase that comes to mind when I walk in is sexy of the Delhi cocktail bar kind. Sleek, sharp-angled, black, gold, and woody interiors dim enough to remind you you’re in a planned ‘hospitality district’, but stopping just short of causing squints at the menu. Squint instead to find an eschewed entrance to the intimate bar, Selva Maya, inside. Find your way in when it's open. It’s a serious miss if you don’t sit at the bartender’s table for at least a third of your time.  The cocktails themselves, with sourced ingredients that the bartenders are nerds about, are outrageously both good and boozy. How dare a pricey Delhi spot do that? The food’s a mix of Nikkei, Peruvian, Mexican, and even fusion Japanese, a combination that slowly grows on me with misses here and there, which is a good thing. It’s a polarising menu (you’ll see why soon), and the table I’m sharing is full of sharp-tongued folk. St

Don’t walk into CMYK expecting to find the next big thing in pop culture, Bookstagram, or even, depending on what you like, literature. They’ve been around for a while in Lodhi Colony, but with their recent boost of two more floors, the bookstore’s all but reinforced their love for huge, hardbound ‘coffee table’ books that veer towards non-fiction, cookbooks, history, and even graphic novels. Here, you discover words and pictures of the kind typically stuffed away in commercial bookstores. To be fair, they do plan to house some fiction… and you’re also spoiled for choice for good reads in Delhi.  At the tempting risk of sounding like a traveller blog of the 2000s, I must recount this, since CMYK's an academic haven just short of a library card. My sister being an economics major and my studying English have inspired several jokes about polar opposites. History and food are near the top of the list of where we find a lot to talk about, where we find anecdotes from our notes that the other finds interesting, and we did, standing in CMYK. The tight curation – possibly, in fact, one of if not the tightest in the city – will inevitably cause a good conversation. Large, pretty picturebooks, of course, help, as does a caffeine rush.  (Meherchand Market’s snowballed with places; my recommendation here would be Devan’s or Roastery.)  We visited CMYK just as their very first exhibition cropped up, too; a set of seven black-and-white photographs of Delhi by William Dalrymple hung arou

Jimbu Thakali’s NCR outlet happens to be their first India foray after several restaurants in Nepal. Founder Vivek Man Sherchan was aware of the fact that they’d now be representing an entire country. This perhaps heightens in a setting like Gurugram’s M3M 65th Avenue, where residents and their families look new openings up and down like a hawk circling mice, and where the international Asian dining is by and large Chinese or Korean.  I’ve walked into an earthen, terracotta setting that’s softened still by subtle green undertones and engravings from different regions of Nepal (even on the bathroom sinks). There are paintings of Gods, there are photographs of the country that I will later learn were taken by a refugee from Germany who stayed in Vivek’s grandparents’ house for three years.  To be clear – it is the playing card, in Delhi, to aggressively theme a restaurant’s setting around a country especially if the cuisine is focused on that country. Make no mistake. At Jimbu Thakali, it’s not a show of gear. The staff here will point you to each area that each item is from. Vivek can go on for hours, I’m confident, about the stories behind the photographs. Lentils and vegetables are imported directly from Nepal.  As lovely as the food at Jimbu Thakali is… please hold. I’m compelled to first appreciate the easy chemistry the staff have with each other. It translates to confidence in a way that PR briefs, I’m afraid, simply cannot replicate. A not insignificant chunk of my even

Centuries of astonishing history in Delhi, and a large part of how we've responded is by building a bougie sandwich shop next to a 12th-century mosque. It’s almost merciful that 1AQ is one of Mehrauli’s modern outposts, a walk away from the Qutub site and the archaeological park. It’s perhaps best known for housing the Ojas Art gallery, which leans towards contemporary, Indian and tribal-inspired art – a brief, welcome departure from ancient history. 1AQ extends into a distinctive 3,000 square feet space that also hosts a book and design shop with a shopkeeper who’ll take you up on a conversation on what you should read. My friend fondly recalls, upon jokingly saying that they were broke, that they were told the plots and authors of cheaper selections. There is also a large manicured garden with neat little statues. This space was conceptualised by Anubhav Nath and designed by Ranjit Sabhikhi. People say it’s easy to miss on the road, but that’s rubbish. All you have to do is keep your eyes peeled for the brightest primary-coloured gallery you’ll see in a city obsessed with greying out its museums. It offers more than fine arts, too; one weekend you’ll spot a saree fair on its grounds, the next there’s a concert under the enormous Banyan tree (or, if you ask a patron or employee, The Banyan) that lords over the garden. Hottest off the press at 1AQ as I write this is Zetu, Delhi’s first Sri Lankan restaurant, which I must say, makes much better use of the elegance of this spac

Monkeys clamber across 700-year-old arches at dusk. With a little less of a disturbance, parakeets streak between the trees. Wild boar have been known to trot across the path just as you're trying to photograph a tomb. Two hundred acres of history, sitting right behind one of Delhi's most visited monuments, the Qutub Minar… and visited by maybe a fraction of the crowds that pour into the complex next door.  Delhi is famously a city of cities, seven of them stacked atop each other across millennia. Mehrauli has been continuously inhabited since at least the 10th century (before the Sultanate, before the Mughals, before the British) and the park holds over a hundred monuments, spanning more than a thousand years of that story. Sultanate tombs, Mughal mosques, Lodi stepwells, a British colonial folly-turned-cafe, and the ruins of Delhi's oldest fort are all within walking distance of each other, connected by dusty forest trails and sandstone markers.  You could spend an afternoon here and feel like you've walked through several centuries. Or you could just picnic, photo-op, stare at the woods around you, spend hours talking, read. You do you. What to find and learn more about Balban’s Tomb: The first thing you encounter after entering the park: a ruined square structure with arched openings on all four sides, half-swallowed by creepers. This is the first place in India where a true stone arch and a true dome were used in construction. Rajon ki Baoli: Built in 1506 during the Lod

Finding Jugmug Thela is the sort of mini-puzzle usually reserved for good small bites found in North Delhi. A saving grace – though perhaps it slightly takes away from the charm – is that it’s easily walkable from the Saket metro station’s Gate 2. You follow hand-painted signs down a lane in Saket’s Saidulajab instead that feels one wrong turn away from someone's aunt's backyard, until fairy lights appear in the dark. And then comes that age-old massive sign. The café occupies a spot in Champa Gali, a beloved little cluster of eateries that many of us who went to college in Delhi decided was a budget indie film setting. Jugmug Thela, which often partners with sustainability NGOs, predates much of the precious-courtyard-café template. The recycled wood, the mismatched bulbs, the shelf of dusty paperbacks, the potted plants; no attempt to try too hard to be hipster, believe it or not. In fact, it could probably scoot by on vibes alone; it sometimes does. You might wonder if it’s worth delving into the fancy fusion dishes. But the food, more than being a special detour in flavour or range, is soothing, which explains why Jugmug is so popular as a last pit-stop. This is particularly true of their pastas, sandwiches, and the Jugmug Specials – their takes on street food. Pair with their masala kadak chai or hot chocolate if you want a hot drink, or a shake if cold. Service is warm, occasionally distracted on weekends when the place fills up, but that’s only to be expected. The best

Pour Over Coffee Roasters, so far, has got three distinct characters – and in concept, they nail the respective feels of their distinct surroundings. One is a suave Khan Market eatery which turns into a bar at night; one’s the earlier-to-close Santushti Complex cafe which gears more towards breakfast and a crowd of all ages, and one’s a small kiosk, perfect for to-gos, operating out of a corporate office in Noida. That’s almost like the ideal kiss-marry-kill of coffee brand outlets. As it turns out, this flexibility extends to the menu. You can sit all day and debate what constitutes a good dining spot in India’s most expensive market or a high-end shopping complex, but to be frank, as pretty as they are, it’s easy to forget once you realise how well-curated the menu is. Food, drinks (coffee and not), hard drinks: a crisply uniform 5 pages each, but a fresh mix of the old and new. Bean history flash cards and palette cleanser soda, here, do more for the experience than you think. The coffee we tried Skip your usual here and go straight for the PO Specials section of the menu, though I suppose there’s no preventing you from the manual brews if you’re that person. The Australian Mocha hits a balance between chocolate and sweetness without thickening itself into a glorified melted pudding. Still thinner is the Vanilla Cold Brew, which, no matter how many times you whisk that spoon and watch it become whiter, packs coffee so strong it could be a premature cocktail. Then rolls in

I can’t count the times that I’ve passed Seven Seeds in a summer evening auto, been caught by the glowy ochre light out of its glass-protected interiors and sentence-case tiled name, and bided my time for an occasion to visit. As it turns out, this coffee shop fits many, and by now, I’ve enjoyed them all. You could be here for a solo cappuccino and a book, a snob taste test, or post a loud-mouthed Humayunpur restro-bar hang at 3 in the morning. Being open till 4am is easily one of the best things about this place, rivalled by the fact that they do specialty coffees as well as their classics, and their surprise espresso martinis later in the night. Even when the wind slaps tissues out of your hands in the outer dining area, and chatter gets loud between not-so-far-from-each-other tables, there’s something very calm about these sky-blue walls, amusing caricatures, and road safety mirrors for decor. Not to mention music at an ideal volume – and they’ve got good taste in jazz. The coffee Many successful small coffee shops in Delhi are so because of one or two consistent picks on the menu that you can sip on while you work. You’ve got your usual choices, like the manual brew, which my friend orders. He’s the type to obsessively stalk coffee beans and their origins online before he buys roasts. And he’s quick to remark that he’s not sure if the beans are roasted fresh in-house. Whether he’s right, he appreciates that it’s smooth without the bitterness, holds its ground even as it c

Zetu’s to be found in an unobtrusive corner on the premises of one of the city’s brightest-hued art galleries, sharing candle-lit headquarters with 1AQ’s good old banyan tree. Yet, unlike so much of its surroundings in the historically wanderable Mehrauli, this restaurant isn’t something you spot by lucky chance at all. It’s Delhi’s first permanent spot for Sri Lankan food, and it was generating laborious strings of chatter long before it even opened in the neighbourhood… which just so happens to house some of the city’s fanciest eats.  You’re led inside with coconut water in hand atop a golf cart, if you so choose. I found myself straightening my back.  Sitting inside, amid cream-coloured and nicked-texture walls with a few stunning paintings (of course), strangely, I zoned out at ease. I walked around the outer dining area, where I’d recommend you take your seat, without feeling like I was inconveniencing fellow diners. As it turns out, this was built into the architecture (by co-founder Anurag Dania), what with the palm trees, ample space between tables, and music a touch too faint. It’s vaguely tropical and the light from indoors ensures you can actually enjoy candle-powered squints at the menu – but make time to see their rotating mini-exhibition inside. Sarah Nikahetiya, a co-founder here and former British diplomat to India, nods vigorously when I ask her about this. ‘I’m from a small village in Britain, and we wanted to retain a sense of community and homeliness,’ she

It’s almost bastardising to review Big Banana, simply because of the chokehold it has as one of Delhi’s absolute best dive bars. I haven’t managed to articulate this in the times I’ve been there, which were mostly spent on ordering the same things and leaving in roughly the same state of happiness, but the grandest thing I have to say is that I love it. It’s a crime that it’s often overshadowed by the biggest daddy of Delhi dive bars – 4S – but that means you can still perhaps find a table here without being jostled too much. The familiar noise of cheer around you is perfectly tempered by the sensible design of the spot: one section’s for slightly calmer catch-ups, where it’s easier to hear, and the other runs into big, grinning, sometimes messy groups of people where recognitions are common. Staff are also incredibly understanding, but firm on noise control, which is perfect. Right opposite of the larger section is a smoking room, for which cigarettes are easily picked up from thekas outside if you’ve forgotten yours. (Though you may get away with being a bum.) I’m not about to tell you what alcohol to order at a neighbourhood bar. But if you want to try out a cocktail here, by all means, do. They’re a Russian roulette in terms of stiffness (this is where it becomes even more lovely that the staff field all sorts of questions, despite how busy they are). Flavours, though, have always found their rightfully-tasted taker. The menu sticks to their names, many of which were prob

Sidecar has consistently made it to best bars of Asia lists, and there are several reasons why. We’re not gonna stick to those. Instead, bear with the ragged synapses of my brain that have been built up over my several good times here, because there’s much more to this M Block royalty than technical craft. The music I'm not being hyperbolic when I say they play better music than most bars in Delhi. And I know that sounds like a thing one says, but stay with me. Most bars treat music like a texture, something filling the silence. Some places get too precious about it, going full coffee-shop jazz. But at Sidecar, they’re doing something right.  Show up at 5.30, and you're in slow jazz territory. Not dirge-y, more like patient, setting you up. As the evening pulls in, the pace picks up, and you don't notice it happening. By 11, they have raging blues going, but it never overpowers conversation. Usually American blues and jazz from until the 90s… I don't think I've ever heard anything beyond that. They've got this absurdly extensive playlist, so repeat visits don't mean repeat songs.  The cocktails The menu keeps changing (barring some classics), mind you, but it's always done with a (not overdone) concept in mind. I tried rifling through Google to jog my memory about their latest ones, but I think it’s best I left it to the honest bits. There was this Authors menu early on: drinks supposedly favored by Philip Larkin, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, that sort of thing. (The Mark Twain drink

Lodhi Colony Market is about to see yet another hip opening this October with the launch of Bambi. The new spot opens on October 29, and the plan, so far, is steel-coded (literally) and straightforward: burgers, bagels, shakes, and fries, with a side of good old fizzy drinks. Bambi’s been notably pared back with the promo, save for their elegant photography of what the city usually considers fast food, which is interesting. Delhi, like most metropolitan cities of the world, has been plagued by the familiarly expensive hipster artisanal burger. From a first glance online, Bambi doesn’t seem to overdo it, though. There’s a simplicity and sense of fun to how they’re dropping hints. What we can tell, so far, is that burgers are the main event. The patties are fresh-ground, smashed on the griddle and served on brioche buns. As for the bagels, we know that cream cheese and salmon are in the mix. Fries are on the menu, because of course they are. A clear point of view might be Lodhi Colony's heavily spoiled lunch crowd has been needing, so it’s safe to say we’re tuned. The details Where: Lodhi Colony Market, exact location TBA Opening hours: TBA Price: TBA Stay updated: Follow @bambi.delhi on Instagram for opening updates.

In Delhi, I am often the person leading the way. I take friends through pandals I did not grow up visiting, explaining the rituals, the history of how Bengalis came to settle in the city, with something that is almost incantation. My fourth Durga Puja in the city is impending. And yet the last time I was in CR Park, a singular neighbourhood, my Bengali friends and I were jarred by yet another jewellery shop and ghugni stall we’d never seen. I have become a guide to a culture I am still discovering.  In Kolkata, growing up, I was the one being led: by friends, friends of friends, family, flings, neighbours who were near strangers the rest of the year. And we would scarcely know what to expect from the pandal, except Maa. On the way, we’d encounter traffic snags and hop over fences, powered by vodka shots in phuchka shells. Neon lights become a haze in long, headache-inducing yellow taxi rides. I suppose that’s one of the greatest differences between pandal hopping in the capital and the ex-capital as a Bengali. You tell grand, nostalgic stories in one and hope the food will further convey them; in the other, you graduate immediately to a postmodernist movement with a stream of consciousness. There are fewer pandals in Delhi, of course. And I don’t blame anyone for not treading past CR Park, the city’s unofficial little Bengal. (I highly recommend checking out more, especially in North Delhi.) I routinely suspect that places grow smaller in our minds as we grow familiar with th

After making a return earlier this year after a whole decade, Restaurant Week India is back for a massive second act this October. Running from October 16 to November 1, the festival brings together over 100 premier restaurants across 15+ cities, locking in specially curated three-course menus designed for discovering new favorites, revisiting beloved classics, and turning any ordinary weeknight into a celebration. Restaurant Week India was designed to bridge the gap between restaurants we keep pushing to the backburner, saving for an occasion that’s worth a gamble, and actually going there, knowing exactly what to expect with specially curated three-course menus. You can book a spot at restaurants across Delhi NCR, Mohali, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Leh, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Goa. All on District by Zomato. While the concept of a chef-curated tasting menu isn’t as entirely novel as it was back in 2010, the usefulness of RWI remains untouched: it’s your official excuse to finally clear out that backlog of bookmarked Instagram reels and experience the city's finest plates on a set budget. The restaurants participating in Restaurant Week India Here's a comprehensive list of the restaurants participating in Restaurant Week India. Restaurant Week India in Ahmedabad Aiko – Japanese/Asian Allora Milano – Italian Capiche – Italian FOO Asian Tapas – Asian fusion Ishaara – Contemporary Indian Peshawri, ITC Narmada – North-West Frontier-style Indian Yi Jing, ITC Na

Delhi inherited Durga Puja from Kolkata much like furniture from a departing flatmate. When the British shifted India’s imperial capital north in 1911, Bengali administrative officers packed up and moved too. Naturally, nobody was ready to leave Ma behind. And it’s never too late to meet her. The city’s oldest community puja, at Kashmere Gate, dates back to 1910, where the goddess still wears traditional daaker saaj. Decades later, following the Partition, a dedicated colony for East Pakistani refugees sprouted in South Delhi: Chittaranjan (CR) Park. It was here that Delhi’s Pujo truly exploded in creativity and footfall. As the crowds grew, the celebration crossed borders. Noida Kalibari established its roots in 1983, and Gurugram soon followed. Today, there is a pandal and bhog to be found in every direction if you’re willing to walk it. Read more: Looking to sample Bengali food in Delhi during Pujo? Here's our guide on the very best restaurants, shops and supper clubs serving traditional Bengali fare across NCR There are some ground rules. Don’t push, and be endlessly patient. Eat beforehand (and make room for seconds after). While the food court by CR Park’s Mela Ground serves legendary kosha mangsho (eating this standing shoulder-to-shoulder qualifies as an Olympic sport), almost every major pandal features pop-up stalls worth the calorie splurge. Wear your most comfortable walking shoes, because wait times at veteran pandals can easily touch 90 minutes. Take heart, thou

India’s art scene has lost one of its most pivotal figures. Peter Nagy, the artist, curator, and gallerist who helped catapult contemporary Indian art onto the international stage, passed away at 67 following a prolonged illness. Born in Connecticut and educated at Parsons School of Design, Peter Nagy was already a force in 1980s New York, co-founding the original Gallery Nature Morte in the East Village alongside artist Alan Belcher. It was his 1992 move to India and subsequent 1997 revival of Nature Morte in New Delhi that permanently redefined his career. Nagy fell in love with Dilli’s chaos, pioneering a space for conceptual art at a time when the local market leaned heavily toward traditional painting. Over nearly three decades, he championed Indian talent long before global auction houses took notice, serving as an early champion for powerhouse artists including Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Mrinalini Mukherjee, and L N Tallur. When Nature Morte opened its Mumbai space in January 2024, Nagy, then the gallery's founding director, described it as a departure from the white cube: more intimate and also a way to widen the gallery's international programming. It was the last major chapter of the gallery, now running across two cities.  Also read: The best art galleries in Mumbai In an official statement following his passing, Nature Morte paid tribute to their founder’s unapologetic spirit: ‘He lived exactly as he chose: fearlessly, irreverently and wildly free.

If your Friday plans involved picking up a bottle or catching a train into town, you might want to rethink them. Indian Railways has ordered the cancellation of all Mail and Express trains scheduled to arrive at New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations between 4am and 2pm on October 10, citing the possibility of severe road traffic congestion around the two stations. The order, issued by the railway department's coaching directorate on October 9, also means that trains leaving their originating stations after 2pm today and due at either station in that window will be cancelled. The move comes amid the Cockroach Janta Party’s and Opposition parties’ protests against the Chief Election Commissioner. It also comes as more than 5,000 passengers were reportably unable to board their trains after roads to New Delhi Railway Station were blocked because of traffic restrictions in central Delhi on October 8, India Today reported. What to do: If you're travelling to Delhi tomorrow morning, check your train status on the IRCTC app or NTES before heading to the station.  Meanwhile, the Delhi government has declared two dry days, citing police inputs, ahead of the October 10 protest. Under an Excise Department order, retail liquor shops under specified licence categories can't sell liquor on Friday, October 9 and Saturday, October 10. Licensed bars, restaurants and clubs will stay open. A night out is still on, but your home bar won't be getting restocked. 57 Delhi metro stations will be

Time Out Market Delhi has its first three restaurant names, and Bhawan is one of them. The Gurugram chaat veteran is joining Mumbai's Mizu and Delhi's Chard at what will be India's debut Time Out Market! The Market, the first of its editorially curated kind in the country, is set to open at Worldmark, Aerocity by the end of 2026. Read more about it here. More about Bhawan Bhawan opened as a cloud kitchen in 2020 and became a physical restaurant in Gurugram in 2022. The goal was to be a one-stop shop for chaat, snacks and mithai from all over the country, and make it taste like the street it came from.  The cult classics that shot them to fame, though, are their twists. The Bacon Kachori, Egg Appam Benedict, Mushroom Haleem, Varqi Lukmi, and the Tiramisu Rasmalai, to name a few. Their mithai makes room for hazelnut, apple, and Nutella in laddoos and barfis.  ‘We’ve always had our heads in India’s streets… A garnish often steals the show. Recipes are tweaked on the fly,’ co-founders and culinary directors Kainaz Contractor and Rahul Dua say. ‘At Bhawan, we take our favourite roadside discoveries, home-kitchen gems and hyperregional finds, and lean into that spirit of improvisation.’  Photo by Shreshth Sharma for Time Out Market DelhiCo-founders and culinary directors of Bhawan, Kainaz Contractor and Rahul Dua Ask them what makes Delhi NCR's food scene tick and the duo’ll tell you it's the people who moved here. ‘People from every corner of India have made Delhi their home, an

The legendary Trincas turns 100 next year, and it's getting a head start. From October 15 to 20, across Durga Puja week, its listening room Tavern-Behind-Trincas on Park Street is running a six-day music programme. Their in-house Bengali band Tavern-er-Taal will play twice a day, working through three generations of Bengali music.  It starts with the classics of Hemanta Mukhopadhyay and Manna Dey and moves to Lata Mangeshkar. Then it'll land up in the more recent sound of Mohiner Ghoraguli, Cactus and Fossils. Everyone's dad has a Hemanta Mukhopadhyay song they'll defend to the death. Everyone's cousin has a Mohiner Ghoraguli one. Now they can fight in the same room, with food. Pujo also brings a light joke to Trincas’ menu, one that every Bengali will be bemused by. Daak Naam vs Tyash Naam plays with the difference between what Bengalis actually call a dish and what a menu might call it. Tok jhal mishti murgi becomes sweet & spicy tamarind chicken. Lebu lonka maach becomes kaffir lime & chilli fish. I’m reminded of Sukumar Ray’s poem Tyash Goru, where he wrote about a cow that is really a bird who only eats a soup of soap and candles. Which, in turn, is really an over-Westernised Bengali. When is Durga Puja? Mahalaya falls on October 10. The main five days run from Shashthi on October 17 to Bijoya Dashami on October 21, with Ashtami on the 19th. The Tavern-er-Taal sets will run alongside Trincas' regular four-band-a-day programming, so the music doesn't stop. Seating does: t

Delhi is revving up for the madness of festival music and crowds. What does one do with the slower days in between? A gallery art show’s an easy way of answering this. October this year, so far, has been quite the time to walk outside. But it’s also the month of the return of government pollution plans to our streets, the word AQI to our group chats, and conversations about how we navigate public parks and maintain our greenery to all over the city. It can’t be a coincidence, then, that many ongoing art exhibitions in Delhi deal with nature. The best of these shows ask hard questions about our relationship with the planet – questions that are not restricted to eight views of the same sea landscape. They also use nature to talk about the human condition, whether through a state’s folklore or fungi decay. Here are six exhibitions that approach the earth from a completely different angle, from bug-eye viewpoints and oral storytelling to scrap-metal ecosystems and sacred geometry. BUGS! We’re All Connected | Shacoco, Shahpur Jat This indie showcase curated by Shreya Josh zooms in on the creepy-crawlies we usually sweep away. It trades high-brow museum walls for a cozy spot next to a coffee place, combining digital/analogue printmakers with an atmospheric soundtrack recorded by Rohan Kale and Udai Sharma. It is lively and chaotic in the way the cutest bugs are. To top it off, a ceiling-mounted GoPro acts as an overhead ‘observer’ inside the tiny gallery, turning visitors into obse

The Delhi government has rolled out its pre-winter playbook for one of the capital's most reliable annual traditions: the smog. Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa announced on Monday that dust-generating demolition and outdoor civil construction will be off the table from November 1 to January 31. From December 10 to January 20, it gets stricter, with a complete ban on construction and demolition. The two bans November 1 to January 31: Dust-generating demolition and outdoor civil construction are off the table. December 10 to January 20: A complete ban on construction and demolition. During this period, trucks carrying sand, cement, bricks or debris are also barred from entering the city. Interior finishing, plumbing and electrical work can carry on if dust-control norms are followed. The rest of the plan: Doubled parking charges, 50% WFH The Winter Pollution Master Plan, overall, is set to kick in automatically every November 1 and runs till February 28. Petrol pumps, CNG stations and LPG outlets can turn away vehicles without a valid PUC certificate, so that crumpled paper is now your most important document. Parking charges will also double from November 1, so you might want to consider ditching your car for public transport or even longer walks while you can in this weather. Office timings will be staggered, and 50 per cent work from home (read: your bed) is on the cards for private and public offices. Meanwhile, drones will be watching, especially at nigh

Delhi’s newly opened Barapullah Phase III elevated corridor saw 3-km long traffic Wednesday, a day after it was inaugurated. Congestion especially built up from Mayur Vihar Phase I towards Sarai Kale Khan.  One driver told PTI he was stuck for about 40 minutes on the way to central Delhi. The corridor, meant to cut Mayur Vihar to AIIMS travel from 30-40 minutes to 15-20, was inaugurated on Tuesday, September 29. Traffic on the Ring Road near Sarai Kale Khan has eased with this flyover, as vehicles that would have queued there now take the elevated route, but the pressure has shifted to two points. At Suryaghadi, vehicles from Phase III merge into the older Barapullah Phase I corridor on their way to AIIMS. At Ashram, the extra flow joins traffic already coming in from the DND, Sarai Kale Khan and the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. Delhi Traffic Police officers, meanwhile, have been directed to step up regulation and strengthen deployment at merging and exit points.  PWD officials reportedly said the carriageway from AIIMS towards Mayur Vihar would open on Thursday afternoon. Authorities are also considering closing the Suryaghadi cloverleaf to link Phase III directly with Phase I, and the police have said several options are on the table. Barapullah Phase III was approved in 2014, began in 2015 and was originally due for completion in 2017. It opened at a revised cost of about ₹1,635 crore. The 3.5-km elevated stretch, intended to directly connect Mayur Vihar Phase I with Sarai Ka

Forget the food for a second. The MICHELIN Guide also turns its magnifying glass on where you rest your head, and this year, India’s only gained more. In the Guide's second-ever global Key selection, India’s been upgraded to a haul of 47 recognised hotels,  from scorpion-shaped Hyderabad palaces to a tented camp in the Aravallis. Unlike MICHELIN's stars, which are strictly a food credential, Keys rate the stay itself, on service, design, character, and value for money. The scale runs three tiers: One Key for a 'very special stay,' Two for 'exceptional,' and Three for the rare 'extraordinary' experience that MICHELIN Inspectors say is virtually its own destination. It launched in 2024, so this is only the second year it's existed globally. Read on for the full list in India. How does MICHELIN inspect a hotel? The same anonymity rule that governs MICHELIN's restaurant reviews applies here. Inspectors check in like any other guest, pay their own way, and assess everything from the check-in experience to housekeeping without ever identifying themselves to staff. It's only after that stay that a hotel gets flagged for a formal, more thorough evaluation. Nothing on this list was chosen because a property rolled out the red carpet for a critic. What shaped the 2026 selection Globally, the 2026 Guide recognises 155 Three-Key, 657 Two-Key and 2,020 One-Key hotels. This year, MICHELIN pointed to an 'increasingly flexible and open-minded modern traveller' who no longer separates busines