Where to Eat Around Udupi and Malpe — Real Places, Named

Udupi has a food reputation that reaches across India, and the odd thing is that most visitors only ever encounter half of it. The vegetarian half — the dosas, the temple kitchens — is famous. The other half, the coastal seafood cooked with coconut and Byadgi chilli, is what people here actually eat at home.

Do both. Here is where.

Everything below is somewhere we or our neighbours eat. We take nothing from any of them for the mention. Opening hours in this part of the world are elastic — call ahead if you are driving specifically.

In Udupi town — the vegetarian canon

Mitra Samaj

Beside the Krishna Matha, in the middle of Car Street. This is the legendary one — the place tied up in the story of the masala dosa's invention, and still the right address for goli baje (soft fried dumplings with green chilli and curry leaf), Mangalore buns and filter coffee.

Small, loud, quick. Go mid-morning or around four in the afternoon.

The temple canteen — Anna Brahma

The Sri Krishna Matha serves free meals to everyone, every day, on a plantain leaf in a large hall. No charge, no requirement, no catch.

It is one of the more genuinely moving things you can do in Udupi and the food is excellent. Turn up around midday and follow the queue. Dress code applies in the temple complex — see our temple guide.

Hotel Mahalakshmi

Near the old bus stand. A local favourite for fish curry rice — the everyday meal of this coast, and the thing to eat if you only eat one non-vegetarian meal here.

At Malpe — seafood

Malpe Lunch Home

The best known seafood place at Malpe, and deservedly. Order the rava fry — fillets crusted in semolina and shallow fried — plus ghee roast and sukka, the dry coconut-and-spice preparation that coastal Karnataka does better than anywhere.

Hotel Maharaja Sea Gate

Also at Malpe, also seafood, traditional preparations with the local masalas. Reliable, clean, unfussy. Good for chilli prawns and tava fry.

The fish harbour

Not a restaurant — a working port. But walking through it in the morning tells you more about the food here than any menu. If a small place near the harbour is full of fishermen at lunchtime, eat there.

At Kodi Bengre — the local speciality

The small places clustered near the river mouth at Kodi Bengre are where you go for kori rotti: brittle wafers of rice rotti drowned in chicken curry at the table so they soften as you eat. Messy, textural, and the most distinctively Tuluva thing on the coast.

Fresh fish fry and toddy — fermented palm sap, mildly alcoholic — are the natural accompaniments.

This is a twenty-five minute drive from us and a genuinely good evening.

In Manipal — if you want a change

Manipal, about forty minutes away, has a large international student population and therefore the region's only real café culture: espresso, bakeries, and food from outside the region. If you are here for a fortnight and want a break from coconut, this is where it is.

What to order, whatever the place

Ask what came in today rather than reading the menu. Fish here is genuinely seasonal and daily. The right answer is anjal (seer), pomfret, mackerel, ladyfish or prawns — whichever the boats brought.

Neer dosa with a curry. Thin, soft, lace-edged rice crêpes — the coast's quiet masterpiece.

Filter coffee anywhere, any time. The standard is high everywhere.

Tender coconut from a roadside cart. In April this is survival equipment.

Where we fit

Ten kilometres in any direction from us, there is nowhere to sit down for a proper meal with a view and a cold drink. That is the gap our kitchen fills — and it is open to people who are not staying with us.

We cook coastal Karnataka dishes and fresh local fish, and we cook stone-baked Italian pizza, which does not otherwise exist for a very long way in any direction. Slow fermented dough, baked straight on hot stone, no shortcuts. It is a strange thing to find on this coast, which is exactly why we built it.

The kitchen runs all day and dinner happens outside, under the canopy, with the sea breeze coming through. Walk-ins welcome; message us ahead for a group or if you want the oven hot.

A last piece of advice

Follow the crowd, not the signage. The best food on this coast comes out of places with no branding, plastic chairs and a queue. If there are lorries or auto-rickshaws parked outside at lunchtime, that is the review.

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