Shah Jamnadas C. Ghariwala

Ghari is Surat's contribution to the Indian sweet canon and this shop in Chauta Bazar, trading since the late 1890s, is the address most often credited with creating it. The sweet is a flat disc of thin wheat-flour pastry filled with mawa (reduced milk solids), sugar, cardamom and dry fruit, deep-fried in ghee and then coated in more ghee so that it sets firm. Variants are named for their filling: plain mawa, badam, pista, kesar and, more recently, chocolate and other modern flavours that traditionalists ignore. The shop's rhythm is governed by one date in the calendar. On Chandani Padvo, the full moon night that follows Sharad Purnima in autumn, Surat eats ghari with bhusu (fried farsan) under the moon, and the city's ghari makers sell many tonnes in a single day; queues at Chauta Bazar on that night are extraordinary. Outside that window the shop trades normally, selling by weight at roughly INR 600-900 per kilogram (~$6.25-9.40) depending on the dry-fruit content, with branches now operating in Vesu, Adajan, Varachha and elsewhere in the city. Ghari keeps well for several days without refrigeration, which makes it one of the more practical Gujarati sweets to carry home, and the shop boxes it for travel. The Chauta Bazar original sits in the dense old-city market quarter, so a visit combines naturally with a walk through Surat's historic bazaars. The contact number is +91 96874 90333.