Parsi New Year Special: 7

Irani Cafe Specialities

That Celebrate Parsi Food

If you want to see how diverse India is, look at all the New Years the nation celebrates, honouring various regional, lunar, solar, and harvest calendars. Navroz, in particular, is the Parsi New Year. And it’s certainly unique to India because, unlike the global Persian New Year in March, Parsis in India follow the Shahenshahi calendar, which shifts the date to late summer. A celebration of renewal, prosperity, and forgiveness, the Parsi New Year is incomplete without these iconic Irani cafe dishes.

Bun maska and chai are to Parsi cafes what vada pao is to Mumbai street food – you can’t imagine one without the other. Bun maska features soft, pillowy breads slathered with salted butter. It’s best consumed hot and soft. The Irani chai is not your regular chai. It is a strong black tea decoction (often infused with cardamom), brewed separately from the milk, poured into a cop, and topped with thick, frothy milk that has been simmered for a long time.

Akuri is a hearty main you’ll find on breakfast, brunch, and lunch tables in Irani cafes and Parso homes. It’s a spicy version of scrambled eggs made with fresh onions, tomatoes, and green chillies. Loved for its soft, creamy, and slightly runny texture, akuri is usually paired with soft pao or toast. This is also one of the easiest and quickest recipes to make (other than bun maska, of course) and thus, perfect for a feast. It adds an item to the table without a lot of effort.  

Now this one’s a classic and a signature item at most Parsi-Iranian cafes, but especially at the Britannia Restaurant in Mumbai that is often credited with inventing and popularising the dish. In a 2011 interview, the cafe’s late co-owner, Mr Boman Kohinoor, called it the one recipe he’d never divulge the recipe for. It’s, as the name suggests, a rice-based dish made with tart barberries, caramelised onions, and spiced meat like chicken or mutton.

Another iconic dish in the category of Parsi food, Salli Boti is a must-have at your Parsi New Year feast. It’s a semi-dry curry made from cooking mutton until tender in a tangy tomato and onion gravy. However, the defining trait of the dish is the topping. It’s topped with crunchy fried potato matchsticks, called salli. Often paired with steamed rice, salli boti is spicy and savoury. 

Dhansak is particularly Indian in its origin story, coming out of the Parsi community of Gujarat. It’s a type of spiced stew made from a mix of lentils, meat (usually chicken or mutton), and vegetables. The trademark flavours come from caramelised sugar and distinct whole spices used in cooking. Much like salli boti, this is also paired with rice, but caramelised brown rice. A simple onion-tomato salad completes the meal. The vegetarian version skips the meat but keeps the lentils and vegetables.

Of course, there are desserts to round up the treat. The most famous one is the smooth, baked dessert, Caramel custard. Made with sugar, milk, and eggs, it has a glossy, golden brown top (from caramelised sugar) and a lightly jiggly, baked custard bottom. It’s sweet, creamy, and rich; the custard has a gentle milky vanilla flavour, and the top is intensely sweet, with a very slight bitter edge. The contrast in textures and flavours is what makes this dessert particularly popular. 

A Parsi bakery classic, mawa cake is dense, buttery, and packed with the rich flavour of mawa. The cake is lightly sweet, with a moist, almost crumbly texture that makes it very different from the airy sponge cakes typically found in bakeries. It’s traditionally topped with cashews or almonds, and pairs beautifully with a cup of Irani chai. Consider it the perfect sweet ending to a Parsi New Year spread.

From a simple bun maska and Irani chai to hearty dhansak, berry pulao, salli boti, and indulgent mawa cake, Parsi food brings together Persian influences with ingredients, techniques, and flavours shaped by its Indian home. And when you host a feast for Navroz, or simply indulge in crowd favourites to try on a new cuisine, you know you’re biting into a little bit of history, made with a lot of love.