Most people who travel between Mumbai and Delhi regularly have worked out a system. They know which berth to book, which train runs on time more often, and they have learned from experience not to rely on whatever the onboard services are offering for dinner. Food on this route is something you figure out the hard way once, and then you start planning.
Sitting at a station stop while someone walks your meal directly to your seat sounds like it should be complicated. It is not. You place the order before you board, pick which stop you want it delivered at, and that is mostly it. This piece covers what is worth ordering and how the process works.
Get Your Meals Sorted Before You Board
Packing food works for the early hours. By the time the journey is half done, the packed food is usually finished or has been sitting long enough that nobody wants it anymore. This is the point where people who planned are eating a proper meal, and people who did
not are staring at a packet of chips. So, Food in trainbecomes the saviour for the passengers, and if travelling alone, this is the most convenient.
Traveling with family, it becomes a real problem fast. A parent who needs something soft and freshly cooked, a child who has decided they are not eating anything that was packed this morning: you are not going to resolve either of those situations with whatever the pantry attendant has left on the trolley. Booking a restaurant meal through RailRestro before departure means you have already sorted this before it becomes an issue. PNR, delivery station, restaurant, done.
Trains on This Route
The main services between Mumbai and Delhi:
- Mumbai Rajdhani Express
- August Kranti Rajdhani Express
- Mumbai Duronto Express
- Paschim Express
- Golden Temple Mail
- Mumbai Central to New Delhi Tejas Rajdhani
- Punjab Mail
RailRestro delivers at major stations on all of these.
What to Order
North Indian Thali
A thali on a train means one container with everything already sorted inside it. Dal, vegetable, paneer, roti, rice, salad, pickle, and a small sweet waiting at the bottom. You are not building a plate or figuring out portions. It arrives complete. Traveling with people who cannot agree on what they want? Thalis for everyone tends to be the quickest way past that conversation.
Veg Biryani
Basmati cooked with vegetables and whole spices, delivered with raita and a small salad. Biryani holds its texture and flavor after delivery better than most rice dishes. The spices keep doing their job even once the container has been sealed for a while. Find a restaurant with decent activity in the reviews recently, and you will get a proper meal out of it.Train food deliveryhelps the passengers to order and relish food as per their choice.
Chicken Biryani
The most ordered non-vegetarian item on this route, and the one where your choice of restaurant matters most. When it lands well, it is genuinely one of the better things you can eat on a moving train. When it does not, you will notice immediately. Ignore the aggregate rating and look at what people have written in the last two or three weeks. That is the version of the restaurant you are actually ordering from.
Paneer Butter Masala with Naan
The gravy travels well in a sealed container, arrives warm, and the spice level is low enough that it works for the whole family, including children. It is ordered frequently on long family journeys precisely because it does not exclude anyone. Comes with either naan or jeera rice. It is predictable food, but on a journey where other things are unpredictable, that counts for quite a bit.
South Indian Meals
After five or six hours in a train seat, most people stop wanting anything heavy. Idli, dosa, vada, uttapam, lemon rice, and curd rice all skip that problem. They are easy to digest, not too filling, and work for any meal on this route. As a breakfast order for an early Mumbai departure, a South Indian meal at the first delivery station sets the morning up without leaving you sluggish until noon.
Chole Bhature
Chickpea curry with thick puffed bhature. This is lunch food. Order it when you have the afternoon ahead and want a meal that settles hunger for several hours rather than just getting you through to the next station. Ordering it late in the evening, when you are planning to sleep in two hours, is worth thinking twice about.
Veg Pulao
Vegetables cooked into mildly spiced rice, served with raita. Compared to biryani, it is quieter, less rich, and easier on the stomach. For an evening meal or anything late in the journey, when lying down comfortably afterward matters, pulao makes more sense than most of the heavier options on this list.
Burgers and Sandwiches. Trains Between Stationsgives you the proper idea of the station so that you can easily order your food as per your choice.
Grilled sandwiches, paneer burgers, cheese sandwiches. Long journeys produce a kind of background hunger that does not quite qualify as appetite. A sandwich deals with it in five minutes without the production of a full meal. Nothing to spread out, nothing to deal with afterward.
Pizza
More popular with younger passengers than you might assume. Margherita, farmhouse, veggie, and paneer options are generally available through most delivery services on this route. Order from a restaurant close to your station, and it arrives in reasonable condition.
Maharashtrian Food
Misal Pav, Vada Pav, Pav Bhaji, Poha. What makes these worth ordering specifically in Maharashtra is not mystique; it is repetition. Vendors in and around Mumbai have made these dishes thousands of times and the result shows in small ways: the balance of the misal, the oil level in the bhaji, the texture of the vada. Further up the route, you will find versions of all of them, but the small details shift. Order from Mumbai-side vendors while the train is still in the state.
Rajasthani Thali
Somewhere in Rajasthan, the stations offer a genuinely different kind of food. The baatis in Dal Baati Churma are dense wheat rounds baked until firm, broken apart, and mixed with dal, with churma alongside, a rough sweet made from the same dough. Alongside Gatte ki Sabzi, roti, and rice, this is a meal with its own logic and history, unrelated to standard North Indian restaurant food. Worth ordering specifically because it is unlike anything else on this route.
Chinese Combos
Hakka noodles, fried rice, Manchurian, spring rolls. Indian-Chinese food has been developing its own character in this country for decades. Order it without needing a reason. Passengers can easily order food for themselves, and if you are travelling with family or friends, they can do Group food order in train.
Sweets and Desserts
Gulab Jamun, Rasgulla, Jalebi, Kaju Katli, Rasmalai. Add one when you place your main order, or circle back later. On a journey that stretches into the evening and then the night, a small sweet at some point is not indulgence; it is just sensible pacing.
Major Delivery Stations on This Route
- Mumbai Central
- Surat
- Vadodara
- Ratlam
- Kota
- Sawai Madhopur
- Mathura
- New Delhi
Every station on this list has multiple restaurants with ratings and customer reviews available before you order.
How to Order on RailRestro
- Open the RailRestro website or app and enter your PNR number
- Select the station where you want your food delivered
- Browse available restaurants and their menus
- Choose your meal and complete payment
- Your order is delivered to your coach and berth when the train arrives
Place your order at least 30 minutes before your delivery station. Confirm your coach and seat number before completing the order. Keep your phone close as the train approaches the station, particularly at stops where it does not stay long. Meals on Wheels becomes the best choice for the passengers if they plan whether it is a long journey or a short one, this is a saviour.
About RailRestro on This Route
Every listed restaurant is FSSAI approved. When ordering from a station you have not used before, read a few recent reviews rather than going by the rating alone. Ratings build slowly over time and may not reflect what the kitchen is doing right now. A few reviews posted in the last two or three weeks tell you considerably more about what you are likely to receive than a score accumulated over two years.