Food streets of Pondicherry

Pondicherry eats in two registers. White Town is croissants, tartines, and courtyard pasta. A kilometre inland, it is ghee roast, Chettinad kozhi, and filter coffee that could wake the lighthouse. A good trip uses both.

Start at Surguru or Sri Kamatchi for dosa and coffee before 9 AM, then walk off the spice on the promenade. If you would rather have butter than gunpowder, Baker Street on Bussy Street is the queue worth joining — weekday mornings are kinder. Café des Arts is the courtyard if you brought a book.

Mission Street and the lanes around Goubert Market still hold the city’s everyday food: bonda, vadai, fresh juice, and evening chaat. For a seated Tamil dinner, Copper Kitchen in Ellaipillaichavady is the room locals actually name. White Town after 8 PM is more pub than tiffin.

Filter coffee at sunrise on the rocks at Le Café. A proper South Indian lunch. A nap. Sunset again on the promenade. Dinner either in a heritage courtyard (Villa Shanti) or a restopub if the night is the point. That is the whole city, in four meals.