bangalore restaurants

Bangalore can satisfy any and all of your food and drink cravings. (Photo: Getty Images)

Eat + Drink

The Hungry Traveler’s Guide to Eating in Bengaluru

Satisfying your appetite can result in unexpected surprises, especially at Bangalore restaurants, which offer impressive sights and even better eating and drinking. Make sure you bring your appetite.

MTR Restaurant

Sample the flavors of a true South Indian breakfast at MTR, a bastion of good eating since 1924. Standing for Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, MTR serves some of the city’s best masala dosa and rava idli, the pillowy cakes that are an early morning staple in Bangalore.

bangalore restaurants
Tuck into a traditional tiffin at MTR. (Photo: Courtesy of MTR Restaurant)

It even has a room reserved just for drinking coffee. MTR’s legendary status means you can expect a wait, even if you arrive by 8am, but do go early or risk missing out on the favorite dishes.

Once you’ve had your fill, you’ll find yourself in a good spot to explore some sights—Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace and Fort, completed in 1791, is close by, and nicely showcases Indo-Islamic architecture. Find the palace at the center of Old Bangalore, near Kalasipalyam.

VV Puram Food Street

bangalore restaurants
Street food along “Eat Street” is a must. (Photo: Getty Images)

After working up an appetite walking around the recently renovated Bangalore Palace, head to Thindi Beedi, the center of VV Puram “Eat Street.” As night falls, over 20 cooks toil behind hot stoves preparing a variety of South Indian and North Indian specialties and even some Chinese dishes.

Popular snacks include the dill-spiked akki roti, steaming-hot bhaji and the sweet flatbread puran poli. A stop at Shivanna Gulkand for a bowl of butterscotch ice cream topped with fruit, nuts and a helping of gulkand rose-petal preserve is almost obligatory.

High Ultra Lounge

bangalore restaurants
Grab drinks til the wee hours at High Ultra Lounge. (Photo: Courtesy of High Ultra Lounge)

Get high—literally—at this ritzy lounge and restaurant atop the World Trade Center, South India’s tallest building. After dark, this is the place to hear DJs spin while you sip designer cocktails flavored with secret local spice blends.

During the day, try the special Sunday brunch with pan-Asian selections prepared at a series of live food stations. Whenever you visit, bring your camera to capture views of the city from 421 feet.

MTR and VV Puram are slightly far out so do make them part of a trip to see Bangalore’s grand palaces, but High Ultra Lounge is right across from Sheraton Grand Bangalore Hotel at Brigade Gateway.