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North vs South: two different restaurants

"Indian restaurant" outside South Asia usually means a North Indian one. A South Indian restaurant is a different building with a different menu, a different price point and a different rhythm — and many people never realise the second kind exists.

	North Indian	South Indian
Staple	Wheat — naan, roti, paratha	Rice, and fermented rice-lentil batters
Signature	Tandoori grills, thick gravies	Dosa, idli, vada, sambar, rasam
Fat	Ghee, cream, butter	Coconut oil, sesame oil, coconut itself
Sourness from	Tomato, yoghurt, lemon	Tamarind, kokum, curd
Heat	Builds slowly, often mild	Sharper, and rasam can be genuinely fierce
Meal shape	Dishes ordered separately, shared	Often a thali or a single large item
Price	Higher — tandoor, meat, longer cooking	Usually markedly cheaper
Meat	Central to the menu	Often entirely vegetarian, especially in tiffin rooms

Telling them apart from the doorway

If the menu opens with starters and tandoori, you're in a North Indian restaurant. If it opens with dosa varieties and there's a steel tumbler of water already on the table, you're in a South Indian one — and you should order a filter coffee at the end.

And "Indian restaurant" is itself a simplification

What most Western high streets call Indian food is a specific, largely Punjabi and Bangladeshi-run tradition that formed in Britain in the twentieth century. It is real food with a real history, but it represents a small slice of the subcontinent — regional cuisines maps out how much is missing, and the tiffin room covers the most widely available alternative.

Restaurants differ enormously — by region, by owner and by country. This describes what is common enough to expect, not a rule every kitchen follows.

Last updated: 2026-08-12

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