8 Indian Street Foods That Were Shaped By Migration, Work And Innovation

Street food goes a long way. Ancient Greek writings mention vendors selling small fried fish, while excavations in Pompeii and other Roman cities have uncovered thermopolia—early food stalls serving ready-to-eat meals. In ancient Rome, where many urban residents lived in multi-storey insulae without private kitchens, buying food from vendors was often a necessity rather than a choice. Across the world, growing cities developed their own versions of food sold and eaten in public spaces: China’s Tang and Song-era cities had bustling markets serving noodles, steamed buns and roasted meats, while Aztec marketplaces offered prepared tamales, maize beverages and other ready-to-eat foods.

So, what makes street food a genre of its own? Is it the food itself, the speed with which it is served, the convenience of eating it on the go, or the conversations and socialising that happen around a roadside stall? In India, where cities have developed distinctive street-food cultures of their own, the answer is rarely just one thing.

Some street foods were carefully created to meet the needs of a particular community; others came about through an accident in the kitchen. Some were shaped by the ingredients available in a region, while others travelled with migrants and found new audiences in unfamiliar cities. The story of street food, therefore, is often also a story about the people, places and circumstances that made it possible.

Here are seven Indian street foods whose histories reveal how a dish can make its way from an idea, a necessity, or an accident to the street.

Mumbai’s Vada Pav Was Built Around The Commuter

Today, it is difficult to separate Mumbai from vada pav. But the familiar combination of batata vada, pav, chutney and fried green chillies is relatively recent. Its creation is linked to Dadar railway station in 1966, when Ashok Vaidya put a batata vada inside a split pav and began selling it to passing crowds. Dadar was a busy railway interchange, and textile mill workers made up a large part of the city’s working population. The snack was inexpensive, vegetarian, filling and, crucially, portable. A meal resembling the familiar roti-sabji could now be eaten on the way to work or home. As Mumbai’s textile industry changed, so did the story of vada pav. During the strikes and mill closures of the 1970s and 1980s, former mill workers began opening vada pav stalls, with political support helping some establish businesses. The food thus became not only a workers’ snack but also a livelihood for people who had lost their factory jobs.

Mumbai’s Pav Bhaji Turned Industrial Necessity Into A Meal

Pav bhaji has a different origin story, but the same Mumbai question sits at its centre: how do you feed a large working population quickly and cheaply? The dish can be connected to the city’s textile mills during the American Civil War, when disruption to cotton supplies increased demand for Bombay’s cotton production. According to this version, mill workers put in long hours and needed inexpensive food that could be prepared quickly outside the mills. Vendors combined vegetables into a mashed bhaji and served it with bread or pav. Another account places its emergence more broadly in the city’s late-19th-century street-food culture, where vendors repurposed leftover vegetables and served the mixture with toasted pav.

In Surat, A Mistake Became Locho

In Surat, one of the city’s most recognisable snacks is said to have started with a cooking error. Locho takes its name from the Gujarati word for a mistake. A vendor attempting to make khaman added too much water to the batter. Instead of setting, the steamed mixture became soft and mushy. Rather than discarding it, the cook sold it to customers. They liked it, and a new snack was born. The story captures something fundamental about street food: a dish does not always begin as a finished idea. Vendors work with ingredients, equipment and time constraints, and sometimes a mistake becomes the recipe. Today, locho is served with chopped onion, sev and chutney. A failed batch of khaman had become a dish with its own identity and stalls.

Kolkata’s Kathi Roll Made A Kebab Easier To Eat On The Move

Kolkata’s kathi roll is another example of street food being shaped by portability. The story commonly associated with Nizam’s in Kolkata dates back to the early 20th century. The restaurant served kebabs cooked on skewers, but these were inconvenient for customers who wanted to eat while moving through the city. The solution was simple: wrap the kebabs in a flaky paratha. That small change transformed how the food could be eaten. Instead of sitting down with a plate of kebabs, customers could carry a wrapped meal through the city. The roll became particularly useful to office-goers moving through Kolkata’s central business districts.

Gujarat’s Dabeli Travelled With Its Customers

Dabeli offers another route from local speciality to street-food staple: migration. The snack is associated with Kutch, and one account traces its invention to Keshavji Gabha Chudasama, or Kesha Malam, in Mandvi in the 1960s. Known as Kutchi dabeli, the snack was sold cheaply and eventually became associated with the wider region. Its spread beyond Kutch was helped by changing patterns of migration and employment. As communities moved between Gujarat and Maharashtra, the snack travelled with them and found new customers. Vendors elsewhere adapted it while retaining its basic combination of potato, bun, chutneys, peanuts, pomegranate and sev.

Coimbatore’s Kaalan Shows That Street Foods Are Still Being Invented

This dish rose to popularity in Coimbatore and neighbouring Erode in the late 20th century. It developed within the rottu kadai, or roadside shop, culture, where vendors needed food that could be prepared quickly and sold to a steady stream of customers. The economy also shaped the dish. Vendors began mixing shredded cabbage with mushrooms to stretch the more expensive ingredient. The combination became part of the dish itself rather than remaining a temporary compromise. Its preparation also suits the street. Mushroom batter can be prepared in advance and then fried with the shredded cabbage in the tangy Indo-Chinese gravy on demand.

Delhi’s Chole Bhature Came Through Migration And Entrepreneurship

One story connects it to Peshori Lal Lamba, who migrated from Lahore after Partition and later established the Kwality restaurant in Connaught Place. Another story traces it back to Sita Ram and his son Diwan Chand, who are said to have begun selling chole bhature from a bicycle in Delhi in 1950 before moving to a shop in Paharganj. What these accounts share is their focus on migration and entrepreneurship. Food travelled with people rebuilding their lives, while selling it offered a way to establish a livelihood in a new city. The dish eventually moved beyond those early establishments. Its combination of spicy chickpeas and deep-fried bhature became a familiar presence in Delhi’s markets and lanes.

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