Best Places to eat in Kodaikanal

Explore the best places to eat in Kodaikanal, some of which have a significant focus on eco-tourism.

This post covers some of the best restaurants in Kodaikanal, Parking and reaching the food street, Considerations (Opening closing time, holidays et al) and Experiencing the culture through food

The food scene in Kodaikanal is a mix of cafe, regular restaurants, restaurants associated with resorts like Sterling, Mahindras and Tamara and the MNC chains like Dominos. Most of these restaurants are located within walking distance of each other, except the ones which are part of the larger properties.

Kodaikanal is set apart from Ooty, Coimbatore and Madurai (the other places on our road trip) by the fact that it had no regular south Indian restaurants. Some of best restaurants in Kodaikanal were either family restaurants serving everything from North Indian to continental to South Indian or Cafes serving continental fare. That itself reveals a lot about of the culture of Kodaikanal.

Ample parking is available close to these restaurants in a street opposite the ones which house most of them and its a stroller friendly walk at any time of the day from the parking to the restaurants. Since its a small city/town, not enough parking is found right next to some of these best restaurants in Kodaikanal.

Our experience with the Dominos in Ooty was just short of terrible (mexican green wave thin crust was really small in size, the garlic breadsticks were not the way they are and restaurant in a very shoddy condition). So we did not bother with the one in Kodaikanal.

Cafe: Kodaikanal is dotted with cafes serving largely the same fare (pizza, burgers, sandwich, rolls, cakes and the like). The noteworthy ones are:

Nia’s Treats:  Focusing on locally sources, eco-oriented food, run by Naveen John who had named the cafe on his daughter’s name. The place is perfect for an evening coffee with chocolate cake. This makes it to one of the best places to eat in Kodaikanal if you are looking for a warm and cozy cafe.

Muncheez: Muncheez started in 2014 as a small shack offering rolls and has a cozy space decked up in a quirky way with graffitis all over.
I tried their frappe (ice cream blended cold coffee) and veggie burger. The cold coffee was good but veggie burger was below average. Personally recommend this place as one of Kodaikanal best places to eat a dessert based on how quickly they were getting sold out on their desserts.

Cafe Cariappa: I did not get a chance to visit Cafe Cariappa so can’t say much about it except for what you will find on Tripadvisor if you look for it. During my research on Kodaikanal best places to eat, Cafe Cariappa was spoken highly about.

Regular family restaurants: Apart from the cafes above, I would recommend heading to Tava restaurant for a proper home made meal. It is a very small place and appearances are deceptive. The quality of food they serve is pretty decent. It isn’t the most flavourful or tasty North Indian food we had ever eaten, rather amongst North Indian, it is one of the best places to eat in Kodaikanal.
We liked the paneer it served and it’s light and freshly made hot fulkas which were a delight to eat after a really long time. They didn’t really do justice to dal but their ghee rice was pretty good and my kids polished it off with just curd, which again was fresh.

What you need to bear in mind:

Check with the locals about the days market is closed and if any of the restaurants you’re headed to in particular is closed. The opening and closing times of these restaurant are also to be kept in consideration when planning the meals, especially if you want to try one of these places in K

One of the days we were in Kodaikanal was a bandh due to Cauvery river dispute. Most of the restaurants and shops were closed so we ended up eating in our hotel’s restaurant. By the evening, however Tava was open so we decided to have dinner there. Next day was Wednesday, the weekly off in Kodaikanal and again one could find shops and restaurants closed in some cases.

Tava for instance closes at 8:45pm everyday so its best to plan accordingly whether you would want to head to your resort after a long day or head straight for dinner and then call it a night.

Experiencing the Culture

Best way is to just talk to the locals, cafe owners and fellow visitors. The laid back and eco conscious culture is visible in everything from the offerings to actions.

One such conversation got me to meet an old acquaintance after almost 7yrs. It really is a small world.