MTR - Mavalli Tiffin Rooms

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, universally shortened to MTR, dates to 1924 and grew from a modest Lalbagh Road tiffin room into one of the best-known names in Karnataka food, later expanding into packaged foods. The Lalbagh Road original is the address visitors seek out, with a traditional dining hall serving breakfast tiffin, a full South Indian set meal at lunch, and evening snacks. The house speciality is the rava idli, which the restaurant credits to a wartime rice shortage that pushed the kitchen toward semolina. Meals end with filter coffee and, on the set menu, a sweet. The restaurant is vegetarian and serves no alcohol. Weekend breakfast and the lunch hour draw queues, and the wait is typically the main cost of a visit. Lalbagh Botanical Garden is a short walk away, which makes MTR a common breakfast stop before a garden visit.