Popular Restaurants & Eating joints

The cuisine of Punjab has an enormous variety of mouth-watering dishes. The spice content ranges from minimal to pleasant to high. At the restaurants, the chefs make a liberal use of desi ghee, butter and cream to make the food lip smacking and finger licking.

Sindhi sweets

The vegetarians delight and one of the oldest food chain in city. food is delicious and is made in pure ghee. It has a chain of restaurants in the city. and has opened up various Restaurants like Sindhi cake shop, and its also into sweets. ISO 9001 certification, a rarity in sweets industry, is just an affirmation of the highest standards maintained by Sindhi Sweets in manufacturing, packaging and managing.

Gopal Sweets Sector 8

Originally a famous food joint of Patiala ( Punjab) has opened up now in Chandigarh sector 8. It has sweets shop and a vegetarian restaurant with very good ambience and food , famous for its quality. The restaurant provides from sweets to namkeen, cakes to pizzas, Indian Chaats to global ice-cream and coffees. Indian, Chinese, continental and south Indian dishes are served

Sagar Ratna

Bringing the flavour of South India to Chandigarh. it is the best best south Indian vegetarian restaurant in town. It now has more than one outlet in Chandigarh, the older one being at Sector 17, Chandigarh

Hot millions

A local fast food chain having 3 restaurants in town, good and quick food. Hot millions is one of the best place to have combos in Chandigarh.

Mehfil, Sector 17,By the Flyover

Better known for its Indian food. Is a spacious family restaurant. A slightly costly restaurant, a meal for two can cost you around Rs. 500. Also serves alcohol.

Ghazal , Sector -17, By the Flyover

The  restaurant is an  old favorite  Located next to Mehfil,  Dal Makhnai  and  Sizzlers  are  popular  here.

Kapil Hotel-elevens

This is a lovely restaurant from the greatest cricket all rounder Kapil Dev. The decor is very classy and everything just perfect, the walls are decorated with memorabilia of the world cup`83 and the legend that Kapil himself is.

Others include Pizza Huts, Mc Donalda, Mocha, Oven Fresh, KFC etc.

Things to do in Chandigarh

Visit to Sukhna Lake in the evening

Created by building an artificial dam on a seasonal stream, Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake is spread over a large area. A 2-km-long promenade along the lakeshore is a popular place to be visited in Chandigarh by the tourists and localities alike.

Rock Garden

Visit the Rock Garden during the daytime. It will take about two to three hours to see the entire garden

Sec. 17 Main Market

Shop in the main shopping centre of Chandigarh preferable in the evening and have snacks and dinner there itself in famous Chandigarh Restaurants

Government Museum and Art Gallery

The Government Museum and Art Gallery in Sector 10 of Chandigarh has a fine collection of stone sculptures of the Gandhara period. The museum is the place to see the prehistoric fossils and artifacts along with modern art and miniature paintings.

International Dolls Museum

The International Dolls Museum in Sector 23 of Chandigarh has an interesting collection of dolls and puppets from all over the world covering the variant art of more than 25 countries.

Visit the Chandigarh rose garden

It has endless varieties of roses and other flowers and a musical fountain also.

Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden

Located in Panchkula about 12 Kms from Chandigarh, Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden, houses over 2,500 varieties of cacti and other succulent plants from all parts of the world.

Pinjore Gardens

Day trip to Pinjore Gardens (40 minutes drive from Chandigarh on the way to Kasauli and Shimla). Spread over 100 acres, the gardens have three palaces built in the Mughal and Rajasthan styles, and numerous fountains and pavilions.

Trip to Kasauli.

This quiet hill station is 77 Kms from Chandigarh. You can cover Mansa Devi temple and also Pinjore Gardens in this trip. Can also visit timber trail ropeway while going to Kasauli

Trip to Morni Hills

45 km from Chandigarh. Morni Hills is a nature park at an altitude of 3,000 feet. It is a good place for rock climbing and trekking.

Visit to Chhatbir Zoological park

Located on the banks of River Ghaggar, 15 km from Chandigarh city on the Chandigarh Patiala Road, the Chhatbir Zoo is an ideal wildlife getaway. The Chhatbir Zoological Park has a collection of animals, birds and reptiles, a lion safari and the Royal Bengal tigers.

Enjoy movies

Piccadilly and Fun republic  are the most popular cinema halls in Chandigarh

Chandigarh Shopping

Chandigarh being a modern planned city has the best managed shopping areas with the perfectly lined up shopping arcades, well managed and ample embarked parking lots, and well behaved shoppers in general. Unlike other tourist destinations in India, Chandigarh is not a city steeped in history and heritage. So shopping in Chandigarh is a different experience.

The most popular shopping arcade is in Sector 17, which is also known as City Centre. Planned around four pedestrian concourses meeting at a central chowk (intersection), the Sector 17 of Chandigarh is a pedestrian’s paradise dotted with fountains, sculptures, and groves of trees.

Sector -17 provides you with huge selection for clothes, shoes, electronics, sports goods, books and anything an avid shopper seeks. Here, you can find virtually anything and everything.

Other than a government store Phulkari, Sector –17 does not hold much in terms of ethnic Indian shopping, there is no traditional item that is specific to Chandigarh, but one can go for the famous curly-toed Punjabi jootis, embroidered Punjabi dupattas (stoles) in vivid colours  and a wide collection of woolens sourced from Ludhiana (famous for hosiery and woolen industry, this place is 100 Kms from Chandigarh.)

Sector -35 is the newer part of the city with upcoming restaurants and hotels.

Sector -22 is famous for its jewelry shops and Indian Snack shops. It also holds a huge “Rehri Market”.

Shopping in Chandigarh is a style statement. You will not like to drive out of posh markets of sector 17 and sector 22 without indulging in a shopping spree. In the evenings, when the colorful mosaic of neon signs and the aesthetically illuminated fountains come alive, Sector 17 becomes the Chandigarh city’s biggest outdoor club.

Cinema Halls in Chandigarh

Chandigarh has Seven Cinema halls. Three in Sector 17 and one each in Sectors 22, 32, 34 and 37. Some of them were designed by the founder Design and Development team of Chandigarh. Like K.C. theatre was designed by Aditya Prakash who was the assistant of famous Architect Jane Drew. Cinema in Chandigarh is moving into new grounds with the authorities waving the green signal for conversion of existing cinema halls to multiplexes.

Theatre

Tagore Theatre (Sector 18) and Punjab Kala Bhawan in the Rose Garden are popular venues for music, dance and drama performances.

Festivals in Chandigarh

Apart from traditional religious festivals of India, people of Chandigarh enjoy many local festivals.

Rose Festival

The Rose Festival is celebrated at Rose Garden in the month of February end or beginning of March. It is the biggest Rose Show in the country. Over 500 exotic varieties of roses are displayed in the three day long celebrations. The festival features performances of music and dance, both classical and folk, flower shows, events for children, exhibitions by local artists, photographers and craftsman and a wide range of other activities.

Companies put stalls to exhibit their products during the festival.

The Rose Festival has been included in the National Calendar of Fairs and Festivals of the Ministry of Tourism.

The Mango Festival

It is celebrated in the month of June at Pinjore Gardens. Generally over 2,000 mangoes of different varieties grown in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are displayed at the festival.

Mango growers from all over India get together at one place giving a chance to public to taste the varieties of mangoes. At the festival, mango products like juice, squash, jams, pickles and aam papad are also displayed.  Agro and food industries processing units display their jams, pickles and canned fruits.

The Chrysanthemums Show

A flower show is held every year in the Terrace Garden of Sector 33 in the month of December . The Chrysanthemum Show attracts a lot of visitors as well as participants to Chandigarh. Hundreds of varieties of the flower are on display and city gardeners vie for coveted honors in the competitions.

The Chandigarh Carnival

This carnival is celebrated in the second week of November (just before Children’s Day) every year for three days. The carnival opens with a colorful procession followed by number of competitions. The carnival is a time for students and children to show their talent and elders too participate in a number of competitions.

The Plaza Carnival

Every Saturday evening, people of Chandigarh enjoy the three-hour Plaza Carnival held on an open-air stage set up in Sector 17’s central plaza. The carnival is free for all and draws a large crowd. It intends to promote local artists from every field. The attractions vary every Saturday and it could be anything from dance, music, and magic show to painting display, sculpture display, acrobatics, or mimicry.

Temples in Chandigarh

Mata Mansa Devi Temple

Mata Mansa Devi Temple at Panchkula is a symbol of Himalayan culture and faith. The shrine located on the foot hills of Shivalik is an epitome of age old tradition of ‘Shakti’ worship in northern India. During Navratras  millions of devotees from all over the country visit this temple for blessings of goddess Mansa Devi. There is a large garden of sacred plants attached to the Mansa Devi temple.

Maharaja Gopal Singh of Manimajra constructed the present main temple of Shri Mansa Devi, during the period 1811-1815. At a distance of 200 meters from the main temple is the Patiala temple.

Chandi Devi Temple

The temple of Mata Chandi is approximately 15 km from Chandigarh. The city of Chandigarh derives its name from this temple Chandi Mandir. The area around this temple is cantonment area of the western command of the Indian Army. There is a railway station also named Chandi Mandir.

Ancient Shiva Temple of Saketri

The temple at Saketri is an ancient historical Shiva temple, just 5 km from Mansa Devi Temple and about 20 km from Chandigarh bus stand. Thousands of devotees throng this temple on the sacred day of Shivratri for pooja and to get blessings of Lord Shiva.

Gurudwara Nada Sahib

Nada was a small village in Patiala State, which is situated in Haryana and about 15 km from Chandigarh. On returning after his victory on Mughal, Guru Gobind Singh stayed at this place and Nadu Shah, a follower of Guruji welcomed and served Guruji by all means. Guruji blessed Nadu Shah by saying  “due to your services this place will be famous by the name of Nada Sahib”. Thousands of devotees come here with deep faith from all over India and abroad.