The Old Kothi

Set inside a 140-year-old pol house, restored by a young architect who returned from Berlin. They serve only filter coffee, masala chai, and one daily snack. The carved wooden ceiling alone is worth the trip into the old city.

Nikhil Shah spent four years at a firm in Berlin before coming back to his family's pol house in Khadia. He did the restoration himself — mostly — stripping back forty years of paint and concrete to find the original carved teak underneath. The menu is deliberately minimal: filter coffee from Coorg, masala chai, and whatever his mother has made that morning.

The neighbourhood itself is half the reason to come. Khadia's pols are among the finest examples of traditional urban planning anywhere in India — narrow lanes, shared stoops, carved doorways. The Old Kothi sits at the heart of one of the best-preserved stretches. Take a walk before you sit down.

— Riya Shah · Visited Feb 2026