Restaurants in Goa
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A
German Bakery
Leafy and filled with prayer flags and jolly lights, this is a perfect place for a huge lunch chosen from an equally huge menu. Tofu balls in mustard sauce with parsley potatoes and salad is a piled-high winner at Rs150. Wi-fi is available for a fairly steep Rs100 per hour.
reviewed
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B
Sher-E-Punjab
A cut above the usual lunch joint, Sher-E-Punjab caters to well-dressed locals with its generous, carefully spiced Indian dishes. There’s a pleasant garden terrace out the back, and an icy AC room if you’re feeling sticky. Try the delicious paneer tikka (Rs90) but note, if you’re hungering for snacks, that the fish fingers and chicken fingers are ‘seasonal only’.
reviewed
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Café Coffee Day
A pleasant enough place to escape the heat, this wannabe sleek joint offers a half-decent cappuccino (Rs44) along with a range of cakes, including the suitably ’70s Black Forest Gateau (Rs44), reminiscent of the era when Colva was still cool.
reviewed
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C
Hotel Venite Restaurant
With colourful graffiti covered walls and half a dozen tiny balconies hanging over the street this Latin flavoured restaurant is the perfect spot to pause for one of their delicious milkshakes and a light snack.
reviewed
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D
Cafe Orange Boom
Just past Cafe Diogo, on the opposite side of the road, this nice little place has good food and friendly service, with a useful noticeboard for catching up on Anjunan goings-on.
reviewed
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Republic of Noodles
For a sophisticated dining experience, the RoN delivers with its dark bamboo interior, Buddha heads and floating candles. Delicious, huge noodle plates are the order of the day, and if you’re feeling flush there’s an exquisite brunch on Sunday mornings: Rs1200 buys you an extensive southeast Asian buffet, along with unlimited Mimosas and Bloody Marys.
reviewed
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E
Fellini
A long-standing Italian joint, perfect for when you’re craving a carbonara or calzone, Fellini delivers all your wood-fired pizza and fresh pasta requirements in the thick of the Arambol action.
reviewed
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La Plage
La Plage is renowned by those in the know, and has been dishing up sumptuous gourmet Mediterranean food in simple surroundings since 2003, concocted by a genuine French chef.
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Le Bluebird
This is an oddly situated and unusually classy French restaurant that does fine dining in a great outdoor area. Francophiles can enjoy imported wine here, and there's a good selection of vegetarian dishes on offer.
reviewed
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G
Hospedaria Venite
Along with Viva Panjim, this is without doubt the lunch address to which most tourists head, and, though the food isn’t exactly excellent, the atmosphere warrants the visit. Its tiny, rickety balcony tables, which look out onto pastel-washed 31st January Rd, make the perfect lunchtime spot, and the Goan chouriços (spiced sausages; Rs145) and vegetable vindaloo (Rs95) are really pretty tasty. Order a cold beer or two, munch on a slightly ’70s-style salad (think cold boiled vegetables in vinaigrette) and watch lazy Panaji slip by.
reviewed
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O’Coqueiro
- Goa, India
- Restaurants › Other
On your right-hand side on the main road north from Panaji you’ll reach O’Coqueiro, a well-known Goan restaurant in Alto Porvorim (Upper Porvorim), which boasts more than just a decent pomfret recheiado (fish stuffed with red masala filling). It was once the scene of one of India’s most famous captures (or at least recaptures), and nowadays boasts a life-sized statute of Charles Sobhraj, the elusive captive, to commemorate the event.
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H
Tato
Down a small street east of the Municipal Gardens is this excellent, and highly fragrant, vegetarian restaurant popular with lunching locals. If you’re indecisive, order a thali (traditional South Indian all-you-can-eat meal), though the paneer chilli (spicy Indian cheese) is the manager’s personal favourite. It costs slightly more to eat upstairs in the icy AC, but the fan-cooled ground floor is perfectly fine too.
reviewed
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Cidade de Goa
After a day of poking about the coastline, a good place to recover before heading homeward is at one of the eight restaurants at this swanky village-style place, designed by renowned Goan architect Charles Correa, close to Dona Paula in the village of Vainguinim. Chow down at its Portuguese-themed Alfama restaurant, which comes complete with wandering minstrels, or just drop in for a cool sundowner at the Bar Latino.
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Om Ganesh
Rush here just before sunset to garner one of a few tiny tables within splashing distance of the waves, or sit back and enjoy the view from a drier aspect. This place sports a pages-long menu offering almost every cuisine under the sun: try a tasty Tibetan thukpa (noodle soup), or while away the hours decoding more cryptic entries, such as the Mexican ‘ Gokomadi ’.
reviewed
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I
Home
This hip, relaxed restaurant, run by a lovely British couple, serves up unquestionably the best food in Patnem. Fill up for breakfast with a thick, delicious rosti topped with fried eggs, cheese and tomatoes, or stop in for coffee and the best chocolate brownies in India. Home also rents out nicely decorated, light rooms (Rs1000 to Rs2500). Call to book or ask at the restaurant.
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J
Om Made Cafe
A highlight on Anjuna’s clifftop strip, this cheery little place offers striped deckchairs from which to enjoy the views and the simple, sophisticated breakfasts, sandwiches and salads. Go for a raw papaya salad with ginger and lemongrass (Rs170), accompanied by a chickoo (small, sweet fruit of the sapodilla tree) and coconut smoothie or a glass of ‘perfumed water’ (Rs20).
reviewed
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Kamaxi Hotel
- Goa, India
- Restaurants › Other
For a fishy lunch so fresh it’s still dithering, stop off at the Kamaxi Hotel in among the palms, run by the eccentric local, Laxaman Raikar. He stocks Kingfisher, if you’re in need of something cold and frothy, and also has three exceedingly basic, somewhat grim and grotty rooms for rent – in case you get seriously stranded – for Rs200 apiece.
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Vernekar Restaurant
Vernekar Restaurant offers a mean tandoori chicken and the world’s finest aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower in a spicy masala sauce) for less than the price of a Coke at the hotel itself. Eat along with locals at one of only four plastic tables. It might be simple, but it serves up some of the very best, super-spicy grub in South Goa.
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Republic of Noodles
- Goa, India
- Restaurants › Other
For a sophisticated dining experience, the RoN delivers with its dark bamboo interior, Buddha heads and floating candles. Delicious, huge noodle plates are the order of the day, and if you’re feeling flush there’s an exquisite brunch on Sunday mornings: Rs1200 buys you an extensive southeast Asian buffet, along with unlimited mimosas and Bloody Marys.
reviewed
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L
Veg Baba
This spanking new place down a side street off 18th June Rd dishes up delicious Indian vegetarian delights of all descriptions, and is friendly, cheerful and efficient. A self-declared ‘meat-free zone’, it’s clean, cool and blessed with a good line in proverbs: ‘An elephant is 50 times stronger,’ it reminds us sagely, ‘It is vegetarian.’
reviewed
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Simply Fish
Simply Fish, of all the restaurants on offer, is the one to plump for, offering up such exotic fishy delights as lobster cappuccino and mud-crab xacuti (a spicy chicken or meat dish with coconut milk). Otherwise, lunch or even just a drink at the all-day Waterfront Terrace and Bar is a more simple, similarly soothing pleasure.
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N
Viva Panjim
Though it might be more than a touch touristy these days, this little side-street eatery, with a couple of tables out on the street itself, nevertheless still delivers tasty Goan staples, as well as the standard range of Indian fare. Keep an eye out in the dim interior for Mrs Linda de Souza, restaurant founder and doughty matriarch.
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Surya’s Beach Café
- Goa, India
- Restaurants › Other
Stop off for sustenance at the family-run Surya’s Beach Café, nestled at its southern end in the trees, just before the river, specialising in seafood, mussels and oysters. Even top British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has allegedly dined at – and recommended – this place, as Surya’s business card proudly notes.
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O
Zen Restaurant
The welcoming statement that the Chinese will eat anything with four legs but a table and anything with two wings but a plane does make you ponder what 'delicacy' might emerge from the kitchens next, but rest assured that this stylish new joint avoids anything dodgy and just sticks to praise-winning Chinese and Thai staples.
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Martha’s Breakfast Home
As the name suggests, Martha’s speciality are her all-day breakfasts, served up in a quiet garden on the way down to the flea-market site. The porridge and juice may be mighty tasty, but the star of the breakfast parade is undoubtedly the piping-hot plates of waffles, just crying out to be smothered in real maple syrup.
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