New Delhi: By 5 pm, the crowd in front of a stall at Sainik Vihar Road in North West Delhi’s Pitampura swells. “Where is she?” ask impatient men and women. They’re waiting, not for a political leader, but for Chandrika Gera, the ‘vada pav girl’, barely taking a second look at the handcarts selling rajma-rice, chole-bhature, and noodles.
“Chandrika’s vada pav has become our family’s go-to evening snack. I find myself drawn here every other day,” says Suman Mishra. Her stall is already a hive of activity. Her mother-in-law is shaping the patties of mashed potato and spices into near-perfect spheres. Workers are dipping them in a thick chickpea flour batter before plopping them into a kadai of hot oil. But customers want “Chandrika ji” to prepare Mumbai’s favourite street food. It tastes better, they insist.
Delhi has fallen in love with the humble Maharashtrian vada pav hook, line and sinker. And it all began with Gera’s sobbing Instagram reel after the authorities wanted her to remove her stall because of the ever-present crowd of customers around it disrupting traffic. There’s a boom in roadside vendors—from Laxminagar to Pitampura. Each one is an aspiring vada pav influencer, selling on the ground and expanding the army online. The vada pav wars aren’t just being fought between Delhi vendors but a friendly match is on with Mumbai too.
There’s Radha Devi, bringing her own twist to vada pav by adding cheese and paneer to the mix. She relocated from Seemapuri Market in Pitampura to Sainik Vihar Road last week. Then there’s Dipika Gupta, a college student, selling the ulta vada pav—where the pav, stuffed and coated with the vada mixtures is dipped in the besan batter and deep fried. Her stall sprouted up just a fortnight back.
Gera finally arrives at 6:15 pm, and customers become lively. People eagerly shout out their orders, asking her to personally make their vada pav. The vadas hiss as they hit the oil, and its aroma floats in the air, making the crowd all the more impatient. After a few tosses and turns, it’s ready. A worker preps the pav by buttering and toasting it. Gera adds a green chilli-coriander chutney and sprinkles a generous quantity of dry garlic chutney before pressing the vada on top. She serves it on a paper plate with fried green chilli on the side—just in case the spice hit is not enough—for fifty rupees. Mishra leaves with ten vada pavs.
What began as a simple business idea is now a full-blown trend. When she took her street cart to Sainik Vihar Road two years ago, she was the only vada pav vendor. Today, the road has earned the nickname ‘Vada Pav Mandi’. After her viral video, at least nine vada pav stalls have popped up in the area. Each stall has its own unique story and flavours to offer—the extra spicy vada pav, cheese vada pav, paneer vada pav and the ulta vada pav.
“This iconic snack isn’t just a passing trend. It has the potential to become a staple in Delhi’s diverse culinary landscape, renowned for its momos and chole bhature,” declares food critic Pushpesh Pant.
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Source of Livelihood
The OG carb-on-carb vada pav is a chewy crispy snack that hits all the right notes. The texture of the pav is as important as the batata vada, and the garlicky red powder can make or break the dish. Vendors zealously guard their recipes from competitors. Even Gera is circumspect about why her vada pavs are so popular.
“A good mood is my secret ingredient,” she says with the tact of a veteran diplomat. “I always prefer making the masala or the chutney with a happy mood and heart. It reflects in the flavours of your dish.” Despite running her cart for two years, her fame only recently skyrocketed due to viral social media videos and her clashes with the MCD and Delhi police. One of Chandrika’s tearful rants on the phone about police troubles has amassed over 44.7 million views.
This iconic snack isn’t just a passing trend. It has the potential to become a staple in Delhi’s diverse culinary landscape, renowned for its momos and chole bhature
– Pushpesh Pant, food critic
Devi, on the other hand, uses Delhi’s favourite additions to street food—cheese and paneer—to distinguish herself from the pack. Before she relocated to Sainik Vihar Road last week, she used to sell kadhi and rajma with rice at Pitampura’s Seemapuri Market.
“Seeing the vada pav trend and the crowds flocking to this road, I couldn’t resist bringing in my flavours,” says Devi, who is rebuilding her savings after her husband fled to Guwahati with all their money. That was two years ago, and she hasn’t heard from him since. With two children in school and a younger brother, the vada pav cart is her lifeline.
The magic with vada pav is its power to appeal to the tastebuds of people across class groups–businessmen, Bollywood stars, bankers, and blue-collar workers. It was the local answer to the growing popularity of south Indian Udupi food in Mumbai in the 1960s. This was the time when Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray was drumming up support by accusing the Gujarati and South Indian communities of snatching away jobs from Mumbaikars. He wanted Maharastrians to become entrepreneurs.
According to several accounts, the original recipe can be traced back to one Mumbaikar, Ashok Vaidya. He had a stall near Dadar station and sold poha and vada to thousands of textile mill workers. The vendor next to him made a living selling omelette and pav. One day, Vaidya stuffed a batata vada between a pav along with some chutney—it was an instant hit. After the labour strikes and the eventual closure of the mills themselves, more workers took to selling vada pavs which soon became Mumbai’s most popular street food.
Now, it is competing with Delhi’s momos and chole-bhature for a piece of the street food pie. It’s why Asha Thapa, who opened a momo cart after moving to Delhi five years ago, has invested in a second cart at Sainik Vihar—selling vada pavs.
But vada pav fever isn’t contained to just that road—it’s sweeping through neighbourhoods like Uttam Nagar and Laxmi Nagar. Ayan Khan, known as the ‘Vada Pav Boy’, is living proof of its popularity. Originally from Nalasopara in Mumbai, Ayan’s family moved to Delhi five years ago after the COVID-19 pandemic, but he stayed with his grandparents in Mumbai. Recently, the 13-year-old started helping his parents, who run a vada pav stall near Laxmi Nagar metro gate number 5, pitching in before and after school.
Sales were steady until a food blogger’s viral video brought the boy into the spotlight, along with his playful banter with Gera. He boasts about his secret chutney recipe. It’s just a stepping stone to his main goal to become an IAS officer.
“Who’s your favourite actress,” food blogger Rajneesh Gyani asks him in a reel. “Vada Pav wali didi,” Ayan quips, referring to Gera. The reel, full of the boy’s one-liners has racked up over 1.4 million views.
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Food bloggers
Food bloggers deserve a big shoutout for the vada pav craze taking over Delhi. The street snack is increasingly being featured on Instagram reels and YouTube videos by influencers like Gurleen Bedi, Rohit Sharma and Abhishek Kashyap.
“People watch our videos and travel from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and even Chandigarh,” says Rohit Sharma, the man behind the ‘Sharma ji ka Ladla’ YouTube channel. The channel has just about 1,500 followers but his videos about Gera have raked in over 1 lakh views.
Sharma, who has made at least four videos on the evolution of the vada pav in Delhi, insists the handheld snack is a fleeting craze. “No matter how much vada pav is sold, it cannot beat chole bhature and Delhi’s taste,” says Sharma who was in Pitampura for another food show. Most of the customers in the area though were biting into freshly made vada pavs.
“It’s just bun and potato, not swimming in oil,” says Rajesh Thakur. While he acknowledges the sumptuousness of traditional Delhi soul food, he prefers the vada pav’s light touch. “I prefer vada pav’s simplicity over Delhi’s heavier food fare,” he says, while taking a huge bite out of a vada pav he bought from Ghera’s stall.
Food critic Pushpesh Pant, who enjoys a well-crafted vada pav, also insists it’s not a fad.
“Aapki zubaan zaika badalna chahti hai (Your tongue wants to experience new and different flavours). South Indians can also relate to this snack, and it’s a new dish for Delhi’s migrant population as well,” says Pant.
According to Pant, food chains like Chaayos cannot replicate the magic of the street version. But he concedes that Delhi’s iteration of the vada pav is different from that of Mumbai’s. The capital city’s preference for a harmonious blend of sweet, spicy, sour, and sweet is at odds with the distinct Maharashtrian spices and taste buds.
In his book, Mumbai is not the sole purveyor of the vada pav. “The best vada pav that I have ever tasted was in Pune, not even Mumbai. Absolutely no one can come close to the authenticity,” Pant said.
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Delhi vs Mumbai
Mumbaikars have already started weighing in on Delhi’s newfound love for the iconic street snack. And the first note of criticism is the pav itself.
“Even if they [Delhiites] manage to replicate the spice blend, what about the pav? The pav in Delhi has a distinct lingering sweetness, unlike in Mumbai,” says Savi Jain Baroliya, a vastu expert who lived in Mumbai for six years. She’s given the matter a lot of thought. “I firmly believe that the water quality in each region also influences the taste of the dish. Without using Mumbai’s water and pav in Delhi, it’s unjust to label it as ‘authentic Mumbai vada pav’,” she says.
On social media, commentators are quick to call out Delhi vendors selling ‘authentic Mumbai vada pavs’. “It’s a scam, don’t fall for it!” wrote one commentator under a reel of Gera making vada pavs.
“Delhi should stick to chole bhature and momos, vada pav is out of your league,” was another comment. Many questioned why the pav was being buttered. Others were shocked by iterations involving paneer and cheese, conveniently forgetting Mumbai’s interpretation of the dosa—cheese dosa, spring dosa and Mysore masala cheese dosa, among others.
Even if they [Delhiites] manage to replicate the spice blend, what about the pav? The pav in Delhi has a distinct lingering sweetness, unlike in Mumbai
-Savi Jain Baroliya
Vendors selling authentic vada pav claim that they have experience in Mumbai. But Bijay Yadav, head chef of Jhakkas Bombay Pav Bhaji, a renowned pav bhaji and vada pav chain with outlets in Lajpat Nagar and Kamla Nagar, is not quite convinced. His vada pavs are authentic, he insists.
“I’ve mastered this snack after living in Mumbai for 27 years, and our flavours come closest to the authentic taste. We even bring in local ‘karigars’ from Mumbai to bake the pav. You won’t find such quality anywhere else in Delhi,” says Yadav, who has been with Jhakkas Bombay Pav Bhaji for 15 years.
Back on Sainik Vihar Road, Chandni Singhal pushes her new vada pav cart in a small empty space. This is her first entrepreneurship venture involving the popular street food.
“But my vada pavs are authentic,” she says. She visited Mumbai two to three years ago and got her fill of the snack. “I recall the flavours vividly and aim to replicate them for our local audience,” she says confidently.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)