Where to Eat Near Crawford Market

Crawford Market is a shopping errand, and the eating happens in the streets around it. The district's food runs in three bands: a Chinese dining room inside the Taj Mahal Palace at Apollo Bunder, a Parsi café in Fort that an Irani family has run since 1925, and a vegetarian thali house about 900 m from the fruit halls, in Zaveri Bazaar. Below all three sits the cheapest eating in the district — the street lanes of Bohri Mohalla and Dongri — which you find on foot.

What separates the three is less the cooking than the shape of the meal and the size of the bill: a thali at a bazaar counter, a Parsi lunch you stretch to an hour, a Chinese dinner that is the evening of the trip. Two are a walk from the market. The third is a taxi ride south.

Decide in one line

If you only have an hour

An hour at the market is a shopping hour, so decide where the meal falls before you start walking.

Eat before

Jimmy Boy opens at 08:00 Monday to Saturday and runs a breakfast menu, which makes it the one address here that works before the market is trading: the shops in the halls open at about 11:00. Eat in Fort, then walk or take a short taxi north to the market.

Eat after

Dinner at Golden Dragon starts at 19:00 and runs to 23:45, so a late afternoon in the halls can end with a taxi to Colaba; Jimmy Boy's kitchen runs to 23:00 on market days. Both are after-the-market meals rather than a break in the middle of one.

Eat in the lanes

If the hour is at midday and you are hungry now, the lanes and Bhagat Tarachand are the two that need no taxi and no plan. Bhagat Tarachand posts no opening hours, so ring 022 2242 9393 before you set out. The lanes need no arrangement at all: you eat what is being cooked in front of you, and the crowd tells you which counter is worth joining.

The three addresses, and their hours

Top of the range: Golden Dragon, at the Taj Mahal Palace

Apollo Bunder, Colaba, inside the Taj Mahal Palace that faces the Gateway of India. Sichuan and Cantonese cooking in a dining room rather than a café: the dress code is smart casual, and Peking duck and Beggar's chicken are among the dishes the restaurant's own page names.

Of the three, this is the one that costs the most and takes the longest, and it is the trip's big dinner. Lunch is the shorter service, 12:30 to 14:45; dinner runs 19:00 to 23:45. It sits on the harbour at Apollo Bunder, south of the Fort, so plan a taxi each way rather than a walk with shopping bags. Ring or email the hotel to hold a table — the restaurant's number and reservations address are in the table above — and book ahead for a weekend dinner.

If you are in Colaba for the evening anyway, the Gateway of India is next door and Colaba Causeway is a short walk up the road.

The middle: Jimmy Boy, Fort

Vikas Building, 11 Bank Street, off Horniman Circle — about 2 km south of the market on the Fort side. An Irani family has run it since 1925 and it took the name Jimmy Boy in 1999. The menu is Parsi: patra ni macchi, chicken berry pulao, dhansak and keema pav, with a lagan nu bhonu set menu for a table that wants the whole spread.

Its hours make it the most useful of the three. It opens at 08:00 Monday to Saturday and serves through to 23:00, which covers breakfast before the market and a late lunch after it. On Sunday and bank holidays it runs 08:00 to 16:00 and reopens 19:00 to 23:00, so it is the one address on this page that is reliably open on a Sunday.

Phone or WhatsApp +91 70688 91891, or email [email protected]. There are other Jimmy Boy branches in Mahim and Lonavala; the Bank Street address is the one near this market.

The local tier: Bhagat Tarachand, Zaveri Bazaar

69/75 Mumbadevi Commercial Centre, Shaikh Memon Street, Zaveri Bazaar — about 900 m from the market building. It is a vegetarian thali house whose own history starts with a stall opened in Karachi in 1895; the Zaveri Bazaar restaurant, which the chain calls its busiest, opened in the 1970s. The thalis come with chapati, dal, rice or pulao, a sweet and a glass of chaas, and there is a Jain thali alongside the special one.

This is the cheapest of the three, and the one that most resembles how the bazaar itself eats. It publishes no opening hours, so ring before a journey built around it. Phones 022 2242 9393 or 9494, mobile 90047 02004, email [email protected].

The cheapest tier: the lanes of Bohri Mohalla and Dongri

North of the market building, either side of Mohammed Ali Road, the Bohri Mohalla and Dongri lanes are where the district eats for the least money: counter food and street food, often eaten standing or at a shared bench. In our own hunt this is the one tier with nothing publishable behind it: the lane stalls we checked have no venue-owned page and no priced menu we could read, so there is nothing to book and no hours to check. Use it on foot: walk the lanes on a market day, look at what is cooking, ask the price before you order, and carry cash.

Two things follow from that. You eat what is being cooked in front of you, which is the whole reason to eat here. And you cannot plan it to the minute, because nothing on the lane posts an opening time — the crowd outside a counter is the answer to whether it is open.

Questions readers ask

Where can I eat if I have only an hour?

The lanes north of the market need no taxi and no plan; Bhagat Tarachand in Zaveri Bazaar is about 900 m away. Jimmy Boy works if the hour falls before 11:00 or after the market closes. Golden Dragon does not: it is a taxi ride to Colaba and a sit-down dinner.

Is there anywhere to eat inside the market building?

The halls are stalls rather than a food court — produce, pets, spices, imported food, household goods and clothes — and the three addresses on this page are around the building, the nearest about 900 m away in Zaveri Bazaar.

What is open on a Sunday?

Jimmy Boy, from 08:00 to 16:00 and again from 19:00 to 23:00. The market's retail day is shut, so treat Sunday as a meal and a walk in the surrounding streets rather than a shopping day. The opening hours page sets out the market's own week.

Do I need to book?

Golden Dragon takes bookings on +91 22 6665 3296 or by email. Jimmy Boy takes a call or a WhatsApp message on +91 70688 91891. Bhagat Tarachand has no working online booking; ring 022 2242 9393 or 9494.

Can I eat vegetarian?

Bhagat Tarachand is the vegetarian address: thalis with chapati, dal, rice or pulao, a sweet and chaas, including a Jain thali.

How far is the Taj restaurant from the market?

It is at Apollo Bunder in Colaba, on the harbour side of the city, so plan a taxi each way rather than a walk with bags.

While you're here

• What to buy at Crawford Market: the produce halls, the pet market, the spice merchants and the imported-food stalls.
• Crawford Market opening hours: the market's own week, including what happens on a Sunday.
• Getting to Crawford Market: the walk from CSMT, the metro and the buses, for a trip that starts with breakfast in Fort.
• Nearby attractions: what else is within walking distance of the halls.
• Where to stay near Crawford Market: lodges and hotels, one of them with a vegetarian restaurant under the same roof.
• Safety in and around the market: ten minutes well spent before a late walk back.

Sources: the restaurant's own page on tajhotels.com for Golden Dragon's address, hours, dress code and contact; jimmyboy.in's contact page and menus for the Fort address, hours, phone, email and dishes; bhagattarachand.com's locations, contact-us and menu pages for the Zaveri Bazaar address, phones, email and thalis; the three venues' own pages were the only source for each address, phone and set of hours above. Distances are from the market building.