Trishna

Trishna has been serving seafood on Sai Baba Marg in Kala Ghoda since 1991, and it remains one of the restaurants that Mumbaikars send visitors to first when they want to eat fish and shellfish. The dining room is plain and can be loud when it is full, which it often is, with a mix of travellers, local regulars and well-known faces. Nobody comes for the decor; they come for what arrives on the plate.

The most ordered dish is Koliwada prawns, and it is the one most regulars will tell you to start with. The other dish that has made Trishna famous is the jumbo crab cooked with butter, pepper and garlic, which is messy, generous and best shared. Beyond those, the menu takes in seafood biryani, Bombay duck, salmon cooked with black pepper and king prawns, which can be ordered with a choice of 21 different sauces. With such a long list, it pays to ask the staff what is freshest that day and how large the crab or prawns are before you order, as the size affects both the price and how many people a dish will feed.

Trishna suits groups and seafood lovers best, because the signature dishes are made for sharing. It also works well for a celebratory lunch in the middle of a day of sightseeing in the Fort. This is first and foremost a seafood restaurant, so choose somewhere else if most of your party does not eat fish or shellfish.

The restaurant opens for lunch and dinner every day. Because the room is small and popular, booking ahead by phone is wise, especially for dinner and at weekends; lunch on a weekday is usually the easiest time to get a table. Allow around an hour and a half for a relaxed meal. Prices are higher than at the city's simple seafood canteens, so check the cost of the crab and larger prawns, which are priced by size, before ordering.

Kala Ghoda is one of the most walkable parts of South Mumbai, so Trishna fits naturally into a day with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the Jehangir Art Gallery and the galleries and heritage buildings of the surrounding streets. The Gateway of India and Colaba Causeway are a short walk or taxi ride to the south.