Restaurants & Food

8 New Restaurants In Goa Serving Coastal Cuisine, Craft Cocktails, And More This August

Published

5 hours ago

August 4, 2025

There’s always something magical about eating out in Goa. But lately, Goa’s food scene has been cooking up something extra special. From breezy beachside haunts to flavour-packed kitchens, these new restaurants are rewriting what it means to dine in Goa. So, whether you’re here for the weekend or lucky enough to call this coastal paradise home, here are some fresh spots you’ll want to check out.

Best New Restaurants In Goa

1. Lento

Image Courtesy: Supplied

Hidden in Saligao, Lento feels like a beautiful ruin slowly reclaimed by plants and patience. Designed by Dishant Pritamani, it’s a café that invites you to pause, relax, and enjoy simple, honest food. The food here is soulful and made with a lot of love by Chef Jyoti Singh. Try the Sunrise Congee, a comforting rice bowl with mushrooms and coconut sauce, or the McPav, a playful take on a chicken burger, made with juicy homemade patties and soft Goan pav. The coffee, made from beans grown in Karnataka’s Salawara Estate and crafted by an award-winning barista, is subtle and lingering.

Where: next to The Second House, Muddavaddi, Saligao, Goa
When: 9 am – 6 pm

2. House Of Telugu

If you’re craving bold flavours and a deep dive into Telugu culture, head straight to House of Telugu in Vagator. Started by the team behind Sanctuary Bar & Kitchen, this new restaurant in Goa brings homestyle comfort food, royal feasts, and street favourites under one roof. The menu is full of flavour-packed gems like Golkonda Kodi and Stuffed Mirchi Bajji is crunchy, tangy, and full of personality. Seafood lovers will love the Andhra Tawa Fish and the Bheemavaram Royyala Pulao, full of prawns and spices from the Konaseema region. To go with the food, try cocktails like the Mayabazar or the Konaseema Kiss.

Where: Panchayat road, H.no: 1615, Grand Chiwar, Amani Hotel lane, off Anjuna, Vagator, Goa
When: 12 pm – 4 pm; 7 pm – 11:30 pm
Cost: ₹1,000 (For two)

3. Morjim Culture

Morjim Culture is a new all-day destination that offers a little bit of everything. Whether you’re an early bird looking for your morning coffee or someone who wants to dance under the stars, this is your spot. In the morning, it’s all about fresh brews and feel-good food. As the sun sets, Morjim Culture turns into a sundowner paradise, where you can enjoy dishes like Golden Kataifi Prawns, Vietnamese Beach Bowl, or Shrimp Tortellini in lemon butter sauce. Pair it with cocktails like the Irish Maid or the refreshing Hey Honey. When night falls, head into Unculture, their hidden speakeasy bar and try the Spro’groni, a twist on a Negroni with coffee, or the spicy Raw Mango Picante.

Where: JPPC+3QF Gawade Wada, Morjim Culture, H# 763/A, Pernem, Gawde Vaddo, Morjim, Goa
When: 7 am – 11 pm
Cost: ₹2,200 (For two)

4. Toula Bar & Kitchen

Toula Bar & Kitchen brings together two rich food cultures, Mediterranean and Asian, in one beautiful space. The space is chic yet relaxed, perfect for a date night, a long dinner with friends, or even a quiet lunch by yourself. You might find sushi rolls paired with Mediterranean herbs or a classic hummus dish topped with soy-glazed mushrooms. The cocktail menu at this new restaurant in Goa is inspired by emotions and experiences, offering drinks that surprise and delight. It’s a dining experience that brings together different cultures, ideas, and people.

Where: H No. 124, Survey No. 52/5 & 52/8, 10/2, near Holiday Inn, Candolim, Goa
When: 12 pm – 12 am
Cost: ₹1,000 (For two)

Also Read: 10 Raksha Bandhan Menus Across India That Bring Back Shared Plates, Fights, And Fond Memories

5. Sivana Beach Goa

If you’ve been dreaming of a perfect beach day in Goa, Sivana Beach might just be your new favourite place. The sunsets here are magical, and they pair beautifully with their refreshing cocktails. One dish you simply must try is the Coconut Jam & Dark Chocolate Toastie. If you’re in the mood for something savoury, go for the Portuguese Prawns. Don’t miss the Truffle Mozzarella Fagottini either; it’s a dish made for slow afternoons. Sivana is the kind of place you’ll want to keep coming back to.

Where: Ashwem Beach Road, inside Leela Cottages, Morjim, Mandrem, Goa
When: 7 am – 1:30 am
Cost: ₹2,500 (For two)

6. Albayli

Image Courtesy: Albayli/Instagram

If you’re someone who loves places that feel warm and welcoming, Albayli is going to win your heart. This is a place where you can sip on cocktails, play a game of pool with friends, or curl up in a comfy corner with a book and your favourite dish. Their Thai Green Chicken Curry is rich, creamy, and perfectly spiced, served with soft jasmine rice. Or if you’re craving something more Indian, try the Albayli Murg Makhanwala. Whether you’re going solo or with a bunch of friends, this is one of those places where you come for a quick meal and end up staying much longer.

Where: No. 511 (4), Ward No, House, 1, Vagator, Goa
When: 12 pm – 4 am
Cost: ₹1,800 (For two)

7. Kai Boré

Kai Boré (which means “so good” in Konkani) is the kind of place that instantly puts you in a good mood. Whether you’re a local or a traveller, there’s something here to surprise you at this new restaurant in Goa. Start off with the Squid Butter Garlic or the Prawns Tempura. The Cheese Cigars are another hit, crunchy outside, cheesy inside, and perfect for sharing. Kai Boré is not fancy or over-the-top; it’s chill, friendly, and full of flavour.

Where: Alex Residency, Colva – Benaulim Rd, Povacao, Seraulim, Benaulim, Goa
When: 11:30 am – 3:30 pm; 7 pm – 11 pm

8. Junta de Xacutti

If you’re in the mood for something truly Goan, then you need to check out Junta de Xacutti in Margao. This new restaurant is bringing back the flavours of old Goan kitchens. Their menu is full of traditional dishes like prawn-stuffed squids, Mori Ambottik (shark curry), Thambdi Bhaji (red amaranth), and Moshkacheo Sango (drumstick and prawn curry). The chefs don’t serve the same menu every day; they change it up, bringing in different Goan classics depending on what’s fresh and available. Whether you’re a local looking for that taste of home or a traveller wanting to experience real Goan food, this is the place to go.

Where: Adolfo mansion, Bernardo F Costa Road, opp. Dogears bookshop, Pajifond, Madgaon, Goa
When: 11:30 am – 11:55 pm
Cost: ₹900 (For two)

These new restaurants are the perfect additions to Goa’s ever-evolving food scene!

Cover Image Courtesy: Supplied and Sivana Beach Goa/Instagram

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First Published: August 04, 2025 8:55 PM

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Restaurants & Food

A new Indian restaurant is slinging the best chaat for miles

Published

8 hours ago

August 4, 2025

Sara Deseran

Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around — the ones we think are worth visiting. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.

If you ask my two food-obsessed friends who grew up in North India, Jalebi Street — a new mom-and-pop restaurant in the upper Haight — makes the best chaat within a 15-mile radius.

Yes, this means Jalebi Street is even better than the beloved West Berkeley institution Viks Chaat. Fighting words for sure, which is why my friends requested to be kept anonymous. But they aren’t wrong: Jalebi Street’s take on chaat, the sweet-savory (mostly) fried street food snack that originated in North India, is among the best you’ll find anywhere near San Francisco.

Assortment of vada pao, jalebi, pani puri, and onion kachori.

The menu also includes other street foods and mains like dal makhani ($16), a rich, time-consuming dish made of slow-cooked black lentils, and saag paneer ($17) topped with a pat of butter. But, at this point, in our chaat-desert of a city, the chaat is what’s getting the buzz.

Jalebi Street’s owners, husband and wife Sam Bhamu and Bhawana Choudhary, opened the restaurant in March, moving it to the city after launching in 2021 as a pop-up in a parking lot in Sunnyvale. “But you can’t do a lot of things in a parking lot,” Choudhary says. They initially made plans to get a food truck but then stumbled on a prime location in the Haight. “It was a shocker when we got it. We were like, ‘Oh, shit — now what are we going to do?”

When I stopped in for lunch in July, the restaurant had yet to hire a dishwasher, so paper plates were being used, which added to the street food vibe. (A dishwasher was being hired and real plates were on the way.) The interior is rather bare bones — decorations are also coming — which is fine, because you’re not here for the atmosphere. You’re here to eat until you ache.

Bhawana Choudhary.

Choudhary, who studied cooking and worked in hotels in India, moved here from Rajasthan last year after marrying Bhamu. His parents own Indian restaurants on the Peninsula. Their wedding was a “set up,” as Choudhary puts it, arranged in part because of the couple’s shared love of food and certainly because both spent their childhoods in Delhi. Bhamu’s brother Vikram Bhamu, a tightlipped cook who won’t share his secrets, is Jalebi Street’s chef.

My friends and I started with the chaat side of the menu, including pani puri ($9), five light-as-air, crisp shells filled with mint and tamarind “water.” They are more fun to eat if you know how to do it properly. My friend demonstrated, spooning in a little of the sweet tamarind water and then — using the hollow shell as a ladle — using her fingers to dip the whole thing into the mint water, the tart-sweet liquid dripping everywhere. (Laughing, her husband said that in India, “The taste of the pani puri is the taste of the sweat of the guy making it on the street.” Luckily, San Francisco has remained at a very unsweaty 65 degrees all summer.)

Up next was the onion kachori ($12), three savory pastries with interiors lined with a thin layer of sweet, aromatic caramelized onions and spices. (The chef will not divulge the spices, not even to Choudhary.) Kachori is a Rajasthan specialty that requires a patient 40-minute fry, a demonstration of deftness if a chef can keep the outside crispy and inside soft without burning it, which he did.

“People travel so far for these,” says Choudary. My friends took a bite and deemed the flaky kachori “great.” We also ordered the kachori chaat ($12) topped with tamarind and mint chutneys, then smothered in tart, cold yogurt and a sprinkling of little fried noodley bits called sev.

From the non-chaat street food options, there’s vada pao ($5.50), one of Bombay’s most iconic street foods and my discerning friend’s all-time favorite. At Jalebi Street, however, the massive starch-on-starch sando, a spicy fried potato fritter on a soft bun, is deemed “Delhi style” (to which my friend sniffed, “Delhi-style vada pao doesn’t exist”) because it’s served with a swipe of sweet tamarind chutney — apparent blasphemy. Though some customers love it, Choudhary knows she’s serving a bite of something divisive. “It’s always the debate,” she admits.

Vada pao.

Better yet — and devastatingly delicious — was the Delhi-style chole bhature ($16), a balloon of a blistered, chewy-crispy fried bread pulled apart to release a puff of steam, ready to swipe in a bowl of spiced chickpeas that are darkened by the addition of black tea. Our choice for runner-up was the Rajasthani bedmi poori allo sabji ($15), four smaller, slightly denser, fried and puffed whole-wheat breads served with a comforting spiced potato curry. (My friends’ parents were the first to visit Jalebi Street and loved this dish enough to request that an order be brought home to them.)

Chole bhature.

And finally, there was the piece de resistance: Jalebi ($8), a sweet made to order from fermented batter that’s fried by piping it directly into ghee, after which it’s soaked in saffron sugar syrup. Considering jalebi is the restaurant’s namesake, there’s a lot of pressure for it to perform.

I’d never had jalebi before, but what arrived — a delicate, golden, transparent, shattering spiral that, with one bite, flooded my mouth with a syrupy-saffrony, eye-popping sweetness — could be a Michelin-level dessert if it just had fancy plating. We ordered it with rabri, a mild, house-made condensed milk scented with lemony cardamom. It’s the perfect foil, providing some equilibrium to the heady sugar rush. One bite and my friend was sold: “Best jalebi I’ve had in the country,” he said.

Deep-frying jalebi.

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Restaurants & Food

Award-Winning Street Food Restaurant Mowgli to Bring Indian Home Kitchen to Norwich

Published

11 hours ago

August 4, 2025

James Russell

Mowgli Street Food, the much-loved Indian restaurant brand known for its vibrant street food and authentic home cooking, officially opens this week.

On Friday August 8 Mowgli will open its doors bringing its distinctive flavours, design, and charitable spirit to the heart of the city.

Anyone dining during the first week of opening (Aug 8-15) will receive free Chat Bombs, one of Mowgli’s signature dishes at the very heart of their cuisine. The signature Chat Bombs are crisp bread puffs filled with yogurt, spices, chutney and chickpeas, a really refreshing flavour explosion!

Mowgli Street Food, the celebrated Indian restaurant brand founded by Nisha Katona MBE, is bringing its unique blend of home-style cooking and immersive atmosphere to Chantry Square, Norwich.

The new restaurant marks an exciting chapter in the city’s food scene and for Mowgli being the first ever in Norwich.

Mowgli is rooted in the way Indians eat at home and from street food stalls, not traditional curry house fare, but the vibrant, punchy dishes cooked how Indian eat at home.

The restaurant is famed for its iconic ‘chat bombs’, treacle tamarind fries, Keralan fried chicken and Mother Butter Chicken, the real deal!

With interiors inspired by Katona’s ancestral home in Varanasi, diners can expect an amber-glow night market feel, trees strung with vines, and the lively clatter of tiffin tins, all signature elements that make Mowgli an unforgettable dining experience.

“Mowgli is a place to kick back with friends and family, two and four-legged, as we have a passion for the things that matter to you,” says Katona. “It’s about creating a home-from-home, where food and kindness come first.”

General manager of Chantry Place, Jo Bates, says: “We’re really proud to offer such a wide variety of global flavours, and Mowgli is the perfect addition, bringing a true taste of India to Norwich. Its ethos of supporting local charities fits so well with our own and we can’t wait for the doors to open and for shoppers to experience its mouth-watering menu!”

The arrival of Mowgli in Norwich also brings with it the values and mission of The Mowgli Trust, the charitable heart of the business. With over £2.6 million raised donated to local and international causes.

Every Mowgli restaurant works with a handpicked local charity, and in Norwich, the team is proud to partner with East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH), whose work supports families across Norfolk and East Anglia.

Laura Southcott, Senior Corporate Fundraiser for EACH, said: “We’re thrilled and grateful to have forged this amazing partnership with the Mowgli Trust.

“From our point of view, it’s a fantastic, high-profile opportunity to raise funds and awareness, supporting our vital work across Norfolk and the rest of East Anglia. We firmly believe it’s the start of an exciting relationship, and this venture is going to directly help the children and families receiving our care and support. As well as expressing our gratitude, we’d also like to take this opportunity to wish our friends from the Mowgli Trust the very best of luck with their new restaurant in Norwich.”

Mowgli’s commitment to enriching lives extends to its teams and guests as well as its communities. The restaurant group has been recognised nationally for its culture and care, including multiple accolades for workplace excellence and charitable leadership.

Each restaurant is led by a dedicated Charity Champion, and Mowgli’s teams are known for going the extra mile, from skydives and marathons to bake sales and crocheting, to raise awareness and support for their partner causes.

Mowgli’s expansion is backed by an award-winning reputation. The brand has been named ‘Best Place to Work’ by The Sunday Times (three years in a row), one of the UK’s Best Companies to Work For (four years running) and many hospitality awards.

With 24 restaurants across the country TV personality, Nisha Katona, opened the first branch of Mowgli in Liverpool in 2014.

Dishes are cooked fresh every day with flavourful herbs and spices and is said to be based around “the type of food that Indians cook and eat at home”.

Nisha has worked as a business and food expert on several projects across the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Katona received an MBE in the 2019 New Year Honours List for services to the food industry.

BM Caterers Turn Forum Words into Action with Access Champion Appointment

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Restaurants & Food

Char kway teow in India? Meet the Singaporeans bringing local food to Mumbai

Published

16 hours ago

August 4, 2025

the Editor

MUMBAI – One runs a supper club that evokes memories of home-cooked flavours, and the other is billed as the city’s first Singaporean street food restaurant.

For these two chefs abroad, food is a way to stay connected to their Singaporean identity.

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