What to Eat in Mahabaleshwar Today?

Strawberries and cream

This is the dish people come for. Fresh local strawberries are piled into a bowl and topped with thick cream, sometimes with ice cream on the side. Stalls around Venna Lake and in the market sell it, and so does the café at Mapro Garden. The fruit is at its best in the picking season, roughly December to March.

Crushes and shakes

The same berries go into strawberry crush, milkshakes and a thick mastani. Mapro, the local food company, bottles crushes, syrups and jams, and its garden shop is where many visitors stock up to take home.

Corn patties

A hot corn and cheese patty, crisp outside and soft inside, is the market's favourite snack on a cold evening. The Main Market lanes are the place for it, along with roasted corn from the carts.

Vada pav

Maharashtra's everyday snack travels well up the hill: a spiced potato fritter in a soft bun with dry garlic chutney and green chilli. It is quick, cheap and filling before a long drive to Pratapgad.

A Maharashtrian thali

For a proper meal, look for a thali with bhakri or chapati, pithla (a thick gram flour curry), a dry vegetable, dal and rice, with a small salad called koshimbir. It is filling, mildly spiced and very much the food of the Satara villages around the plateau.

When and where

The strawberry stalls are busiest in the afternoon. Market snacks are best in the evening, when the lanes fill up. Outside the fruit season, fresh strawberries are scarce, so try the other dishes first. The where to eat page lists the kitchens known for each dish.