New Modern Hotel (NMH)

Tucked near Minerva Circle in VV Puram, New Modern Hotel — known to regulars simply as NMH — has been serving Bangalore since 1959. Founded by Lakshminarayana Rao, the modest eatery has outlasted trends and generations to become one of the city's most enduring old-school "hotels," a term that, in Bangalore's vocabulary, means a classic South Indian restaurant rather than a place to sleep.

In its early decades, NMH doubled as an informal gathering spot for the city's literary and cultural circles. Writers, musicians, and theatre personalities are said to have met here through the 1970s and 80s, turning breakfast tables into workshops for ideas. The kitchen's reputation still rests on Bangalore staples — idli and dosa served the old-fashioned way — that keep long-time patrons returning decades on.

The VV Puram neighbourhood itself has since grown into one of Bangalore's most food-loved pockets, often referred to locally as the city's 'food street' after dark, when nearby stalls fill the lane with chaats and grilled snacks. NMH, by contrast, keeps to its original rhythm — a no-frills breakfast and lunch spot best visited in the mid-morning hours, when the tables turn over quickly and the classic filter coffee is at its freshest.

The man behind the counter for much of NMH's history wasn't its founder at all. Lakshminarayana Rao hired a young Narasimha Adiga as a cashier not long after opening the doors in 1959, and somewhere along the way Adiga saved enough, and earned enough trust, to buy the place outright and become its proprietor. His brother, Padmanabha Adiga, later joined him in running it, and at one point the two tried giving the interiors a lick of modern paint and a bit of polish — new fittings, a tidier look. Regulars weren't having it. The pushback was strong enough that the brothers quietly let the place drift back to its old, slightly worn-in self, which is more or less how it still looks today.

Through the 1970s and into the 80s, NMH's breakfast tables did double duty as informal editorial desks and rehearsal rooms. Writers like D.V. Gundappa, A.R. Shastri and H.V. Seetharamaiah are remembered as regulars, alongside theatre figures such as B.V. Karanth, Girish Kasaravalli and Nagabarna, and classical musicians including Madurai Mani Iyer. Much of that traffic was tied to the Sree Ramanavami Music Festival, an annual classical music season held every March-April at the old Fort High School grounds nearby, now running into its ninth decade and known over the years for hosting some of the biggest names in Indian classical music. Visiting artists performing there needed somewhere close, unfussy and open early, and NMH's attached boarding rooms fit the bill — one room in particular was, by local lore, kept aside as a standing reservation for whichever musician needed it that season, earning itself a reputation as the hotel's 'lucky room.'

Two of Kannada cinema's most respected films are said to trace part of their creative groundwork back to conversations held over breakfast at NMH — Samskara and Chomana Dudi, both landmark works of the Kannada New Wave, are remembered locally as having 'first bloomed' at these very tables, worked out by the writers and directors who ate here between projects.

NMH's food itself has never chased novelty. Idlis arrive soft and unhurried, paired with a bucket of hot sambar kept right at the table rather than ladled out sparingly — pour as much as you want, refill as needed, no one's counting. The masala dosa holds its own against fancier addresses across the city, and regulars swear by the bread toast as a quieter, equally satisfying alternative on a morning when dosa feels like too much. A full South Indian meal at lunch — rice, sambar, rasam, a vegetable curry, curd, pickle, papad and a sweet — comes together as an unfussy, filling plate that's changed little in spirit even as its price has crept up over the decades.

What keeps NMH going, more than the menu or the history, is the fact that it never really tried to become something else. Customers who came here as college students decades ago now bring their own children and grandchildren in for the same idli-sambar they grew up on, seated at tables that have hosted three generations of Bangalore's food habits without much fanfare. It isn't a destination in the flashy sense — there's no queue for photos, no reinvented menu — but for anyone curious about what a genuinely old Bangalore breakfast used to feel like, NMH is about as close as the city still gets.

NMH also sits in good company. VV Puram and neighbouring Basavanagudi hold some of Bangalore's oldest surviving eateries, a handful of which, like NMH, have quietly outlasted the trends that came and went around them rather than chasing any of them. That older Bangalore habit of calling a simple vegetarian restaurant a 'hotel' — a hangover from a time when many such places did also rent out rooms — survives most visibly in this stretch of the city, and NMH is one of the clearest surviving examples of exactly what that word used to mean before glossier cafes redefined it for a newer generation of Bangaloreans.

It also sits well inside easy walking or short-drive range of several other Bangalore landmarks worth folding into the same outing — M.N. Krishna Rao Park and Bugle Rock Park a couple of kilometres away, the old Bull Temple and Dodda Ganapathi Temple carved from a single block of granite nearby, and Lalbagh Botanical Garden just over a kilometre off, making it an easy add-on rather than a separate trip if you're already exploring this side of the city.