Hyderabad’s Best Restaurants 2019

Hyderabad is seeing a lot of new entrants in the food and beverages scene in the city. There is a feeling among people that starting a restaurant is an easy way to make a quick buck. For some of them, cooking good food looks like the only criterion in success, with scant attention paid on promotion. For some others, the quality of food does not matter, it is just getting some so-called “influencers” to talk about the restaurant in social media is seen as the path to glory. There are very few who have got the mantra right in terms of good food, good service, good location and good buzz. Informed people say that while there may be a lot of restaurants opening every month in this city, the same number may be actually closing down.

Against this backdrop, it is an onerous task to choose the best restaurants in the city. The Week magazine commissioned me with four other bravehearts for this assignment. The Week’s India’s Best Restaurant 2019 edition was about to the compiled, and we needed to work together and decide on a list of about ninety restaurants under nine different categories.

The reason for a 5-person jury is simple. Individually it is not possible for someone to cover most of the good restaurants in the city, as it may entail eating out every day, maybe every meal. Between the five of us, we had a fair grip on the restaurant scene in our city, including places which are good but located in far-flung areas. We had to choose ten restaurants under nine different categories, provided by the magazine. After making each of our individual lists for each category, we sat together at a session to thrash out the final list. The categorization was comprehensive but still left scope for introducing a category or two. I will talk about that towards the end of this story.

(If you are unable to view the restaurants in the graphic, you can see the list here)

Street Food is the category which appeals to me the most. I have been vocal for long about preparing a street food map for our city, but unfortunately not been able to get collaborators for the project. Apart from the ten that made the list, I have some more favourites in this category. Ram Bandi, Shahran Hotel, the Jalebi places near High Court, Royal Fish Stall, as well as the Bade Miyan Patthar ke Gosht stall at Upper Tank Bund are some that come to my mind.

The Jury

If you look at the local food in Hyderabad, Hyderabadi and Telugu cuisines dominate the scene.  The categories provided to us included one called Regional which had to include restaurants from all regions of India.  As a result, the local Hyderabadi restaurants which command a significant following among food lovers had to be packaged in the regional category, and many deserving ones could not be included. Paradise, Shadab, Shah Ghouse, Chicha’s and Bawarchi are some of the good ones that come to my mind. Even my current favourite Meridian could not find a place. The Telugu restaurants were clubbed in the South Indian category, and I feel we could do justice to them. In the regional category Sarkar’s Kitchen and Fisherman’s Wharf would have possibly featured if Hyderabadi restaurants were taken out as a separate category.

A trend among diners is big cities is that large groups are attracted to eat-all-you-can buffets. A separate category for buffet restaurants helps in showcasing some of these places, which are present in both fine dining and casual eateries. Seasonal Tastes, Food Exchange, Okra and Feast are some of my favourites in the former, whereas Absolute Barbecue, Barbeque Nation and Flechazo rule the roost in the latter section.

All these along with the list provided by The Week constitute the best restaurants in Hyderabad. 

If you differ with the list or feel that any name has been missed, please share your opinion in the comments.

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