Karnataka

Tandoor heartland — butter chicken, dal makhani, naan. Ghee-rich, wheat-leaning, the most globally exported face of Indian food.

Spice-coast coconut-and-fish — appam, fish curry, avial, sadya banana-leaf feast.

Fish, mustard oil, panch phoron — sweet meets pungent. The dessert culture (rasgulla, mishti doi) is its own discipline.

Vegetarian by default — sweet-savory-sour braided into every plate. Dhokla, thepla, kadhi, undhiyu.

Mumbai street food's home — vada pav, misal pav, pav bhaji. Coastal Konkani heat meets Marathi snack culture.

Tamil Nadu three traditions — Chettinad spice, Brahmin vegetarian, urban dosa-idli street.

Desert state water-scarce cooking — dal baati churma, laal maas, gatte ki sabzi.

India's spiciest mainstream cuisine — pickle-pungent, chilli-forward Telugu cooking built on rice, tamarind, and the sour gongura leaf. Guntur chillies bring the heat; fiery powders (podis) eaten with ghee and rice are a daily ritual.

Royal Persian-Indian fusion — biryani, korma, kebabs slow-cooked over dum. Saffron, dried fruit, kewra.

Deccan Nizam Muslim luxury — biryani, mirchi ka salan, double ka meetha.

The gentle, subtly spiced cuisine of Odisha on the eastern coast — rice-centred, lightly soured with curd, and historically tied to the temple kitchens of Jagannath at Puri. Mustard, panch phoron, and a famously restrained hand set it apart from its richer neighbours.

Portuguese-Indian creole — vinegar, kokum, palm feni. Vindaloo, xacuti, sorpotel, bebinca.

The fiery merchant cuisine of the Chettiar trading community in inland Tamil Nadu — famous as one of South India's most aromatic and pungent styles. Built on a deep arsenal of freshly dry-roasted, stone-ground spices and sun-dried meats, with star anise, stone flower, and dried red chillies driving its dark, complex masalas.

Mountain-Persian inheritance — rogan josh, yakhni, dum aloo, kashmiri pulao. Saffron, fennel, Kashmiri red chili.

The refined Nawabi cuisine of Lucknow — slow dum-cooked korma and biryani, kebabs ground so fine they melt on the tongue (galouti), saffron-and-kewra perfumes, and the silken breads of the royal dastarkhan. Where Mughlai cooking turned delicate.

The rustic, thrifty cooking of the Gangetic plains — sattu (roasted gram flour) in everything, smoky litti dough balls fired over coals, clay-pot Champaran mutton, and the wheat-and-jaggery sweets of the Chhath festival.

The home cooking of the Parsis — Zoroastrians who fled Persia for India's west coast over a millennium ago — fusing Iranian sweet-sour sensibilities with Gujarati and British-era tastes. Egg-loving, jaggery-and-vinegar balanced, and unafraid of meat, it gave India dhansak and the wedding feast of Bombay.

The light, sour-and-bitter cuisine of the Brahmaputra valley in India's far northeast — minimally spiced, rice-based, and built on river fish, herbs, and fermented flavours closer to Southeast Asia than to the curries of the plains. Tenga (sour) and khar (alkaline) dishes define the table.

Rice and fermented batter — dosa, idli, sambar, rasam. Coconut, curry leaves, mustard seeds, tamarind.