Food in Banswara is Rajasthani, but not the Rajasthani food most visitors have eaten in Jaipur or Jodhpur. This is the far south of the state, close enough to Gujarat that the border shows up on the plate.
Why it’s different down here
Two things.
Geography. Banswara sits at the corner where Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh meet, and the cooking borrows from all three. The Gujarati influence is the most obvious — a slight sweetness in some preparations that you will not find in the north of the state.
Water. Much of Rajasthan cooks the way it does because water was historically scarce, which is why so many classic Rajasthani dishes use very little of it. Southern Rajasthan is greener and better watered, and the food is correspondingly less austere.
What to look for
Dal Baati Churma — the dish everyone names. Hard wheat baatis baked and broken into ghee, with dal and a sweet crumbled churma. It is heavy, and it is meant to be. Eat it at lunch, not dinner.
Gatte ki Sabzi — gram flour dumplings simmered in a yoghurt gravy. This is the one we would send a first-time visitor towards. It is genuinely regional, it is not something you will find done well outside Rajasthan, and it is excellent.
Ker Sangri — desert beans and berries, dried and cooked with spices. Tangy, unusual, and about as Rajasthani as food gets. Not to everyone’s taste, which is part of the point.
Bajre ki Roti with garlic chutney and white butter — millet flatbread, winter food, and very good on a cold Banswara morning.
Papad ki Sabzi — papad cooked into a curry. It sounds like a joke and it is not. Born of the same scarcity logic as the rest of the cuisine.
Dal Dhokli — the Gujarati influence showing plainly. Wheat squares cooked into dal. Comfort food.
The sweets
Mawa Kachori, Ghevar around the festivals, and Malpua. Ghevar in particular is seasonal — you will find it around Teej and Raksha Bandhan and much less easily the rest of the year.
On vegetarian food
Banswara is overwhelmingly vegetarian, and that is not a limitation here — it is the tradition the entire local cuisine is built on. Nothing on the list above wants meat in it.
Our own restaurant has been pure vegetarian since 2003, the year the hotel opened. A hundred seats, and the same family still cooking. Guests who married here and ate their first meal together in that room come back years later with their children and say the food tastes the same. It should.
Practical notes
- Spice. Rajasthani food runs hot. Ask for less if you want less — nobody will mind, and it is much easier than trying to fix it afterwards.
- Timing. Lunch is the main meal. Our kitchen serves breakfast from 7:00 AM and lunch from 11:00 AM, with last orders at 10:45 PM.
- Thali first. If you are here for one meal and cannot decide, order a thali. You will get a spread of the above and can work out what you liked afterwards.
If you are staying with us, just ask at the front desk what is good that day. The honest answer changes with the season.