Food & Culture
India
South Indian cuisine is one of the great cuisines of the world. Most of the world has never tasted it.
The Forgotten Atlas — Field Report
South Indian cuisine is one of the great cuisines of the world. Most of the world has never tasted it.
South Indian food is a completely distinct cuisine from the northern Indian food that most of the world knows — the curries and naans that defined the global impression of Indian cooking. In Tamil Nadu, the state of which Chennai is the capital, the cuisine is built around rice, lentils, tamarind, coconut, and a spice palette that is simultaneously subtle and complex. The dosa — a fermented rice and lentil crepe, crispy at the edges, served with coconut chutney and sambar — is the flagship. But the full range of the cuisine goes far beyond it: idli, vada, rasam, kootu, avial, chettinad chicken that is the most complex curry in the world.
Tamil food is the most sophisticated regional cuisine I have encountered in India. It is also the most unknown outside India. These two facts are directly connected.
The Forgotten Atlas
The vegetarian "meals" restaurant is the institution. For a fixed price — usually under two dollars — you receive a banana leaf covered in small portions of rice, sambar, rasam, kootu, avial, pickle, papad, and whatever the kitchen is preparing that day. Servers refill continuously until you signal that you are done. Eat with your right hand. This is not a preference — it is how the food is properly experienced, the warmth and texture of the rice and the various preparations distinct in the hand in a way that a utensil cannot convey. The udupi restaurants throughout the city serve tiffin (breakfast) — dosa, idli, vada — that are the best breakfast in India.
Chennai is the home of classical Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam dance — traditions with 2,000-year histories that are still performed at a high level and accessible to visitors at the Music Academy and the various sabhas (performance venues) during the December Music Season, the largest classical music festival in Asia. The Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Mylapore is one of the finest examples of Dravidian temple architecture. The Government Museum contains an extraordinary collection of Chola bronze sculpture. Marina Beach — the world's second longest urban beach — is where the city comes to walk, play cricket, and eat corn and sundal in the evenings.
Stay in Mylapore or T. Nagar — both are residential neighbourhoods with excellent local restaurants. The December Music Season (December 15 — January 1) is the best time to experience the city's cultural depth.
The old neighbourhood. The Kapaleeshwarar Temple, the best idli-dosa restaurants in the city, filter coffee in the morning. Start here.
The commercial heart. The Pondy Bazaar, silk saree shops, and the most concentrated density of excellent "meals" restaurants in Chennai.
The Government Museum, the central station, and the lodges where budget travellers have been staying since the 1970s.
Six kilometres of beach. Come in the evening when the city comes to exhale. The bhajji and corn vendors are the right thing to eat here.
The most famous South Indian restaurant chain in the world, started in Chennai. The masala dosa and the filter coffee here are the standard. Always a queue.
The idli as an art form. Soft, perfectly fermented, served with six varieties of chutney. The best breakfast in the city.
Chettinad cuisine — the most complex and spiced regional cuisine in Tamil Nadu. The pepper chicken and the kola urundai are extraordinary.
One of the oldest udupi restaurants in the city. The sambhar here has been refined for decades. Open from 6am.
Tamil filter coffee — dark, strong, mixed to a froth by pouring between two metal cups — is the beverage of the city. Order it everywhere.
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