South Indian

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.

South India's most varied state cuisine — from the millet-and-jowar plates of the dry north to the coconut-rich coast of the south, anchored by Udupi's celebrated vegetarian temple cooking. Mildly sweet, jaggery-touched, and the birthplace of the masala dosa.

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.