Ooty's chocolate shops are everywhere and worth a stop, but the town's real food identity is built around its tea-estate breakfasts and Nilgiri-Kurumba influenced home cooking — think ragi mudde, wild honey, and slow-cooked meat curries you won't find on a standard Tamil Nadu menu.
Start the day the way estate workers do: hot filter coffee and a plate of soft idli with a coconut-heavy chutney. For lunch, a full banana-leaf thali at one of the older Charing Cross eateries is still the best value in town. And however full you are, leave room for a cup of fresh Nilgiri tea, tasted within sight of the garden it came from — it tastes nothing like the box at home.
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