Is Indore India's most under-the-radar street food city?
This central Indian city is a street-food powerhouse, where Gujarati, Rajasthani, Malwa and Maratha kitchens converge at stalls offering everything from spiced potato patties and golden samosas to flattened rice and flying lentil dumplings.
As evening settles over Indore, the narrow lanes of Sarafa Bazaar undergo a nightly transformation. Jewellery shops pull down their shutters and burners are lit; woks clatter, cooking oil heats and the air fills with the rich aroma of sizzling street food, from crisp, spiced patties to syrupy sweets. By day, the bazaar is a precinct of gold and gemstones. By night, it becomes the city’s most acclaimed open-air kitchen.
Set against a backdrop of the sprawling seven-storey Rajwada Palace — a fading remnant of the once-powerful Holkar dynasty — Sarafa’s streets are a vital part of culinary life in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Their role has played out for generations: local lore suggests that Sarafa’s origins date back to the 19th century, when Queen Ahilyabai Holkar encouraged night vending to deter thieves from taking advantage of closed jewellery stores. Traders offered space outside their shops to food vendors, and the arrangement flourished.
Today, the market runs daily from 9pm until 2am, offering vegetarian street food rooted in Gujarati, Rajasthani, Malwa and Maratha kitchens, a diversity that speaks to Indore’s long trading history as a strategic central Indian city. You’ll find chaat snacks such as spiced, fried aloo tikki potato fritters and crisp pani puri shells filled with tangy mashed potato and chickpeas, along with refreshing fruit shots of black plum, orange or watermelon and gold-leaf-wrapped kulfi (ice cream). Alongside traditional favourites, there are innovations such as kulhad pizza, a deconstructed iteration of the Italian favourite, baked and served in small terracotta cups.
By morning, the action shifts to Chappan Dukan, a cluster of 56 numbered stalls that grew out of a former vegetable market, revamped in 2020 into a purpose-built food zone for daytime diners. Seek out delicacies such as sabudana khichdi, a light-yet-filling porridge of tapioca pearls cooked with peanuts and chillies, samosas fragrant with a warming garam masala blend including coriander and cumin, momos dumplings and spiced shikanji lemonade.
The city’s combination of scale, food diversity and efficient management — Indore has been ranked India’s cleanest city in the national Swachh Survekshan survey for eight consecutive years — has earned praise from chef Vikas Khanna, who called Indore the ‘ultimate street-food destination in India’. Here are some of its must-try street-food stalls.
Johny Hot Dog, Chappan Dukan
Here, the humble hot dog gets a distinctly local makeover. Since 1978, potato patties have sizzled on a wide tava, a metal griddle brushed with ghee (clarified butter), turning golden and fragrant with fresh coriander, green chilli and a blend of ground spices, before being tucked into a buttered, lightly toasted split pao (bread roll) and served with chopped onions, ketchup and green chutney — a creative twist on America’s street-food staple. The menu also includes a mutton hot dog and the omelette-filled egg benjo, a reinterpretation of the British egg banjo (military slang for a fried egg sandwich).
Owner Vijay Singh Rathore developed the potato hot dog recipe with his mother, inspired by hot dogs he first tasted at a local English cinema in the 1970s. Decades later, the stall remains a beloved city favourite, and its vegetarian version won Uber Eats’ award for the most-ordered dish in the Asia-Pacific region in 2019. From 30 INR (25p). Shop UD-49-50-51, Arcade Silver 56/1, Chappan Dukan, New Palasia, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001.
Joshi Dahi Bada House, Sarafa Bazaar
Few street-food vendors in Indore match Joshi Dahi Bada House for sheer theatre. This modest stall, operating for nearly eight decades, is famed for its dahi vada — soft lentil dumplings soaked in thick, creamy yoghurt. It’s now run by third-generation owner Omprakash Joshi, who introduced his signature flourish in 1977. Dressed in a crisp white kurta-pyjama, he sits cross-legged on the floor and begins each serving by tossing a plate of dahi vada into the air — sometimes several metres high — before catching it effortlessly.
He finishes each plate with a precise sprinkling of spices: salt, red chilli powder, black pepper, roasted cumin and carom seeds. Beyond the spectacle, the flavour lingers — tangy and gently spiced — keeping a stream of loyal locals returning night after night. 80 INR (63p). 24, Bada Sarafa, Sarafa Bazar, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452002.
Prashant Nashta Corner, Near Suyash Hospital
If one dish sums up Indore’s breakfast culture, it’s poha or ‘flattened rice’. Widely available across the city, poha has been served at Prashant Nashta Corner — now run by the third generation, with three outlets — since 1949. The dish — incorporating rice that’s cooked and flattened — dates back much further, however. Originating in the western state of Maharashtra, it reached Indore in the 18th century with the Holkars when they assumed control of the city.
Over the years, the original version — Maharashtrian-style poha, lightly sautéed with onions, potatoes, curry leaves, roasted peanuts and finished with a squeeze of lemon — was adapted locally. Today, Indori poha comes softly steamed and garnished with jeeravan masala, a tangy local spice mix including dried mango powder and roasted cumin, crunchy gram-flour sev noodles and fresh coriander, giving it a unique tangy, subtly sweet and aromatic flavour. It’s best followed by hot jalebis — deep-fried batter soaked in sugar syrup — or accompanied by a bowl of spicy usal, a sprouted lentil curry. From 20 INR (15p). PV7M+6H4, Near Suyash Hospital, Red Church Colony, Residency Area, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001.
Vijay Chaat House, Chappan Dukan
This family-run venue has been dishing out Indore’s beloved khopra patties since 1969, when it began as a roadside kiosk. Demand for its golden-fried mashed potato patties exploded and within a year it moved into a rented shop, before bagging its first permanent premises at Chappan Dukkan in 1978, followed by another in Sarafa Bazaar in 1985. The khopra — crisp on the outside, soft within — are stuffed with sweet-spiced coconut and served with sweet and spicy chutneys. The menu is broad, spanning spiced potato samosas, batla kachori deep-fried pastry shells filled with spiced green peas and aloo wada, gram flour battered potato dumplings, but the khopra patties remain top of the bill. 22 INR (£18p).
Chappan Dukan, New Palasia, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001, India.
Lal Balti Aloo Kachori, Rambagh
Small but mighty, Lal Balti Aloo Kachori has stood its ground in Indore’s Rambagh area since 1969. The menu has always been simple — one item, aloo kachori — but the flavours are not. Spiced mashed potato is sealed in pastry, flattened into discs and fried until they puff into crisp, golden spheres roughly the size of a tennis ball, then served piping hot with a sharp, fiery green chili chutney made from 14 ingredients.
Arrive as it opens, around 4.30pm, as it sells out quickly. In its formative years, the shop adopted a simple signpost device: a red bucket — lal balti in Hindi — containing a lightbulb that they hung outside. Lit, it signalled availability; unlit, the day’s batch was finished. Over time, the bucket became a familiar marker in the neighbourhood, and eventually, the shop’s name. Around 15 INR (11p). Tilak Path, Ram Bagh, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452007.
Suresh Chaat Centre, Sarafa Bazaar
In winter, Indoreans typically crave one thing: garadu chaat, crispy, spiced, deep-fried yam, available only from November to February or early March. Suresh Chaat Centre is a fixture for this cold-season treat, also serving another local classic, bhutte ka kees, a savoury combination of grated corn cooked in milk with spices and finished with coconut, enjoyed throughout winter and during the monsoon months of mid-June to September. From 50 INR to 70 INR (41p-58p). PV92+2W3, Old Kasera Bakhal, Sarafa Bazar, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452002.
Navin Coconut Crush, Sarafa Bazaar
No visit to Indore is complete without sipping a malai coconut crush, a cooling drink made from fresh coconut water, ice, malai (coconut flesh) and a hint of sugar. Several stalls serve it, but Navin Coconut Crush draws crowds as much for the performance as for the drink itself. The vendor carves the coconut with a heavy blade and throws it in the air, speaking in a rhythmic, half-sung patter, sharing his life story and joking with customers as he works. From 80 INR (66p). PV92+6W3, Bada Sarafa, Sarafa Bazar, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452002.
