The history of Mumbai in 10 iconic sweets

Talk of Mumbai’s food scene, and the conversation is hijacked by the likes of vada pao and sev puri, or seafood meals. But, here’s looking at the city’s sweet side—the iconic sweetmeats that tell the story of Mumbai, its history and its diverse communities.

MAHIM HALWA: Thin, dainty, translucent sheets of flaky halwa, sprinkled with dried fruits and nuts, and strands of saffron, Mahim halwa is a Mumbai speciality. Its invention is credited to Girdhar Mavji, who arrived from Gujarat in Mahim, one of the seven islands bolted together to create colonial Bombay, in the 1780s. He started out by hawking homemade sweets from door to door and later opened a small shop that evolved into a family business now run by the seventh generation. The shop named Joshi Budhakaka Mahim Halwawala is a landmark in Mahim.

THALI SWEET: A cake made with semolina, egg whites, sugar, freshly-grated coconut and ground almonds, is an heirloom dessert of Mumbai’s East Indians, original inhabitants of the islands of Bombay, Salsette and Bassein, who embraced Roman Catholicism during the Portuguese rule. “The thali sweet is a must during East Indian weddings, and gets its name from the thali or plate it is set in,” says Thelma Falcon, a resident of Bandra’s Chimbai Koliwada. Thali sweet is mainly ensconced within East Indian kitchens, but Falcon makes it on order. (Contact: 9870173090)

BYCULLA SOUFFLÉ: Named after the eponymous whites-only gentlemen’s club of colonial Bombay where it was invented, Byculla Soufflé only survives in fading memoirs and popular imagination. The Byculla Club, established in 1833, was legendary for its prawn curry dinners and this boozy dessert made with mix of kümmel, chartreuse, orange, curaçao and Benedictine spiked with isinglass, which was whipped up with egg yolks, sugar and fresh cream, poured into moulds, topped with biscuit crumbs and baked. The dessert may no longer be available, but Samuel T. Sheppard’s 1916 book The Byculla Club carries a recipe.

MALAI NA KHAJA: The Parsis descended from Persian Zoroastrian migrants, who first arrived on the Indian west coast in the eighth century, fleeing religious persecution. Under British rule, they emerged as an influential community by virtue of their entrepreneurial acumen. An iconic Parsi dairy enterprise is the Parsi Dairy Farm opened by Nariman Ardeshir in 1916. Their malai na khaja is a flaky, syrup-laced pastry dome with a cream centre and a topping of nuts and varq. “We prepare the richest malai daily for this, and during festivals and family occasions people come in asking for it by name,” says Parvana Mistry, operations director at Parsi Dairy Farm. Archaeologist and culinary anthropologist Kurush F. Dalal says it is also popular among the Bohras of Mumbai.

LADOO: In the 19th century, Mumbai transformed into a hub of cotton mills, attracting thousands of migrants, who arrived to work in its textile mills. In areas where these mills were concentrated, chawls, khanavals and snack shops mushroomed. One of them is Mumbai Ladu Samrat. “It was established by my grandfather Maruti Rakshe in 1967 and served migrants from the Konkan region. Initially, it was popular for the hard kadak boondi ladoo made with boondi and thick concentrated syrup that hardens on cooling,” says Siddhant Rakshe, the current owner’s son. The shop moved to its present location near Lal Baugh’s Ganesh Galli in 1991.

MODAK: Lalbaughcha Raja may be Mumbai’s most famous Ganesha idol, but the city’s first public Ganesh Chaturthi festival was held in 1893, at Keshavji Naik Chawl in Girgaon through the efforts of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, says Siddhartha Fondekar, an advocate and heritage enthusiast, who leads walking tours. Close to the historic pandal, stands the 105-year-old Panshikar, famous for their ukadiche modak—fluted domes of steamed rice flour stuffed with jaggery and coconut, a mandatory offering to Ganpati bappa.

AFLATOON: The origins of this fudgy, sweet made with mawa, eggs, semolina and nuts are amorphous. But, in Mumbai, it is synonymous with Mohammad Ali Road, where the best ones are sold at the shop of Suleman Usman Mithaiwala. The area is a hub of the city’s diverse Muslim population comprising numerous migrant communities. Mahomed Ghyas-ud-deen’s 19th century Persian text Jan-e Bomba’i speaks of diverse Muslim groups who already lived in the city—from Arabs and Turks, to Malabaris and Konkanis.

MAWA CAKE: A mix of Zoroastrians and Muslim Shias also migrated to Mumbai in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly from Yazd in southern Iran. Called Iranis, “many of them started out by selling tea, and opened bakeries and provision stores that morphed into corner café-restaurants,” says Dalal. Today, no visit to one is complete without the rich, dense mawa cake that Dalal believes descended from the Persian kumas (cake). Now that the legendary Irani cafe B. Merwan & Co., famed for their mawa cakes, has shut down after 111 years, try the ones at Kyani & Co., another landmark Irani Cafe.

PINEAPPLE SHEERA: Nothing quite beats a spoon of glossy pineapple sheera at Ram Ashray, after a breakfast of crisp dosas or podi idlis. A semolina halwa studded with chunks of pineapple, it is a staple at Mumbai’s Udupi hotels, inexpensive “vegetarian” eateries originally started by migrants from the Udupi region of Karnataka. In the 1930s-40s, a number of Udupi hotels cropped up, especially in areas like Matunga, which emerged as a bastion of south Indians, as scholar Chinmay Tumbe points out in his 2018 book India Moving: A History of Migration.

SEV BARFI: “Singhar ji mitha or sev barfi—a fudgy sweet of khoya and unsalted sev—is a Sindhi speciality for all occasions,” says Alka Keswani, who documents her community’s food on her blog Sindhi Rasoi. In Mumbai, the best sev barfi comes from Jhama Sweets in Chembur. The shop was started by Jhamalal Lulla, a native of Sindh in present-day Pakistan, who migrated to India during Partition, along with millions of others who crossed the border at the time. Chembur was among the several refugee camps that cropped up at the time to accommodate the displaced.

Priyadarshini Chatterjee is a food and culture writer who divides her time between Kolkata and Mumbai.