Punjabi, Tandoor & Frontier in Mumbai

The tandoor came to Bombay with Partition. Punjabi and Sindhi families who arrived in 1947 opened dhabas and restaurants across the city, and their kitchens gave Mumbai butter chicken, dal makhani and the whole North Indian restaurant format that the rest of India later copied.

Several first-generation places are still open under the same families. That is the reason to go to them rather than to a newer room with better lighting and a shorter memory.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Pritam Da Dhaba1942	Pritam Hotel, Dadar East	Opened by a Punjabi family five years before Partition; butter chicken, dal, tandoori roti.
Copper Chimney1972	Worli and city-wide	Founded by Jehangir Vazifdar; the North Indian tandoor format most later restaurants copied.
Sardar Pav Bhaji1966	Tardeo	Not Punjabi cooking but a Punjabi family’s kitchen; the butter-heavy pav bhaji the city queues for.
Dadar and Sion tandoor houses	Dadar, Sion, Matunga Road	Neighbourhood kitchens, family-run.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Bhagat Tarachand1892	Kalbadevi and Fort	Punjabi and Sindhi food in the market district; plain room, large portions, no frills.
Khyber1958	Kala Ghoda	North-West Frontier cooking in an art-filled room; one of the grand old Mumbai restaurants.
Gaylord1956	Veer Nariman Road, Churchgate	North Indian and Continental with a bakery counter; one of the city’s first pavement cafes.
Kebab Korner1970s	InterContinental, Marine Drive	Hotel frontier cooking with a sea view.
Delhi Durbar	Colaba	Mughlai and Punjabi on one menu.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Peshawri	ITC Maratha, Andheri East	Frontier cooking — dal bukhara, sikandari raan, tandoori prawns.
Urban Tadka	Andheri West and Lokhandwala	Punjabi dhaba format, suburban prices.
Punjab Grill	Bandra and BKC	Modern North Indian.
Sindhi kitchens	Bandra, Khar, Santacruz	Sai bhaji, koki, dal pakwan; often catered rather than sold.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Chembur Sindhi kitchens	Chembur	Chembur was settled heavily by Sindhi families after 1947 and the food shows it.
Ghatkopar and Mulund tandoor houses	Ghatkopar, Mulund	Punjabi restaurants in a largely vegetarian suburb.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Malad and Borivali dhabas	Malad, Borivali, Kandivali	Highway-style dhabas along the Western Express and Link Roads.

What to order

• Butter chicken and dal at Pritam Da Dhaba, Dadar, running since 1942
• Dal bukhara at Peshawri — cooked overnight, and worth the price once
• Kebabs at Copper Chimney, which set the format most Indian tandoor houses copied
• Sai bhaji and koki — Sindhi home food, easier to find in Chembur than anywhere else
• Bhagat Tarachand’s plain thali in the Kalbadevi market lanes

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