Food Trails

Understanding Gujarati food and the classic thali

Gujarati food is built on a flavour idea that surprises first-timers: a deliberate balance of sweet, salt and sour in almost every dish, often with a pinch of jaggery melted into the dal and a squeeze of lime or a knob of kokum to answer it. The best way to meet the cuisine is the unlimited thali, a round steel platter loaded with small bowls of dal, kadhi, two or three vegetable sabzis, farsan, rice, hot rotli brushed with ghee, pickle, chutney and a sweet, every bowl refilled the moment it empties until you finally wave the server away in surrender.

This is a largely vegetarian kitchen, shaped by a big and influential Jain community that avoids onion, garlic and root vegetables, and it has turned those constraints into invention rather than limitation. The result is a table that leans on lentils, gram flour, yoghurt and clever, layered spicing rather than meat, yet never feels thin. Regional swings are very real: Kathiawadi food from Saurashtra is fierier and more rustic with plenty of chilli and garlic, Surti cooking is richer and sweeter, and the north keeps things lighter and subtler, so no two thalis you eat across the state taste quite the same.

From the unlimited thali to midnight street-food markets.

Farsan, undhiyu and street food by city

Farsan, the whole family of steamed and fried snacks, is where Gujarat truly shows off its skill. Soft, spongy dhokla and the rolled, mustard-tempered spirals of khandvi are made from fermented gram flour, while crisp fafda paired with fried green chillies and sweet jalebi is the classic Sunday-morning breakfast eaten standing at the shop. Winter brings undhiyu, a slow-cooked medley of surti beans, purple yam, small eggplants and fried methi dumplings buried in green spices, traditionally cooked upside down in sealed earthen pots over embers and eaten with hot puris through the Uttarayan season when the vegetables are at their best.

Street food splits neatly by city. Ahmedabad runs on evening chaats, spicy kachoris and the Manek Chowk night market that transforms into a chaotic food circus after the jewellers shut. Surat is famous for pure indulgence, soft steamed locho, ghee-soaked ghari and butter-heavy snacks its people are cheerfully proud to overdo, while Vadodara claims the tangy sev usal and the deep-fried sandwiches of its lively night stalls. Save room for sweets throughout the trip: the ghee-rich mohanthal, the shredded festive ghari and cool, cardamom-scented shrikhand round out a cuisine that simply never forgets its sweet tooth.