Best Restaurants in Cochin

Cochin (Kochi) is the most sophisticated dining city in Kerala and the only Indian port whose kitchens are built simultaneously on the European spice-trade colonial tradition (Portuguese, Dutch and British in succession), the deep Malabar Muslim culinary tradition, the Syrian Christian household kitchen, and the Kerala temple-vegetarian tradition. The result is a multi-cuisine fine-dining scene that runs from the heritage coastal-Kerala seafood houses on the Fort Kochi side, through the high-rise hotel rooms on the Marine Drive and Bolgatty island side, to a small set of contemporary restaurants in Mattancherry that have rebuilt the Kerala plate for an international audience. The pepper, cardamom and coffee plantations of the Western Ghats sit a few hours inland; the kitchens have a structural sourcing advantage that few Indian cities can match.

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