Food desk
Food
Hyderabad eats well and eats late. This is where we keep our food writing: guides to dishes, notes on what is good right now, and what a fair price looks like.
Lorem City Guides started in 2015 as a weekly email from two food writers in Hyderabad. Ten years on, we publish across four cities with a team of 24 writers, and we still visit every place we write about.
Hyderabadi biryani
The dish the city is known for. Rice and meat cooked together on slow dum, served with mirchi ka salan and dahi chutney.
Haleem
A slow-cooked mix of wheat, lentils and meat, pounded until smooth and topped with fried onion, ghee and lemon. Most kitchens make it only during Ramzan.
Irani chai and Osmania biscuits
Sweet, milky tea brewed strong and served in small cups, with a salty-sweet butter biscuit on the side.
Telangana home food
Jonna rotte, sarva pindi, pachi pulusu and gongura dishes. This is the food of homes and highway dhabas, and it is worth seeking out.
Andhra meals
Rice, dal, a fry, a curry, rasam, curd and a spread of pickles and podis, served on a banana leaf and refilled until you stop the server.
Breakfast tiffins
Idli, dosa, pesarattu, upma and puri, eaten standing at busy counters before work.
Street food and late-night eating
Chaat near the old markets, keema samosas, pathar ka gosht cooked on a hot stone, and Indo-Chinese stalls that stay open well past midnight.
Cafes and bakeries
Newer cafes across Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills and Gachibowli, and older bakeries known for fruit biscuits and dil kush.
Latest from the food desk
- Biryani in Hyderabad: what to order and what to pay
- Haleem: a short guide
- Irani cafes that are still worth the trip
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