The State’s varied available ingredients have given an amazing range of dishes that are special to each area. The cuisine reflects what produces in plenty, particularly coconut, chillies and tamarind. The choice of vegetarian food is wide and meals are generally with rice and cereal. The dishes range from earthy flavours of Northern Karnataka, the traditional fare of Southern Karnataka, the spicy delicacies of the costal region, to the distinctive Kodava cuisine.

A few restaurants in Mysore City serve authentic Kerala, Mangalore also known as Karavali Cuisine along with the traditional culinary fare of Karnataka.

Mysore also excels in vegetarian Udupi Cuisine. Usually Udupi meals avoid the use of garlic and onion and in some cases even tomatoes. Boiled rice accompanied by rasam (a clear peppery lentil soup), jackfruit, colocasia leaves, raw green bananas, mango pickle, red chillies are part of an Udupi menu. Adyes (dumplings), ajadinas (dry curries), and chutneys, including one made of the skin of the ridge gourd, are specialities. Thalis are served on green plantation leaf or on a stainless steel plate.

The traditional culinary fare of Karnataka commonly includes rich cereal, salads made out of parboiled vegetables chopped fine and tossed with desiccated coconut, green chillies, curry leaves and mustard seasoning, gojju (vegetable cooked in tamarind juice with chilli powder in it), tovve, (cooked dal without much seasoning), hulli (a thick broth of lentils and vegetable cooked together with ground coconut, spices, tamarind and chilly powder) and papad (fryums). A complete range of rice based dishes, including lemon rice (rice with lime juice, green chilli, turmeric powder sprinkled with fried groundnuts and coriander leaves), vangibath (spiced rice with eggplant), pulliyogare (rice flavoured with tamarind juice and spiced with groundnut) form an integral part of the traditional fare. The most distinctive Karnataka dish, however, is the celebrated bisibelebath – a unique combination of rice, dal, tamarind, chilli powder and a dash of cinnamon. In the rural areas, ragi balls (steam cooked finger millet rolled into large balls) served with mutton curry or curry made of greens (soppina saaru) form the staple food.

Mysore also has a few outlets serving wheat and jowar rotis, which are accompanied by side dishes like kaalu palya, soppu palya, usli (all made from spicy sprouted gram).

For the breakfast, one can choose from the popular upittu (roasted semolina laced with chillies, coriander leaves, mustard and cumin seed), idly (soft steamed fermented rice cakes), with sambar (a spicy lentil and vegetable broth), thatte idlis (flat idlis), dosa (thick crisp pancakes, plain or ‘masala’ when stuffed with semi-mashed potatoes), rava dosa, set dosa, vada (savoury lentil doughnuts), puri palya and uthapam or kesari bath (a pudding made of semolina and sugar laced with saffron).

Mysore boasts of the sweet preparation called Mysore Pak, there are other sweets relished by Mysoreans like chiroti (a light flaky pastry sprinkled with granulated sugar and soaked in almond milk), obattu or holige (a flat, thin, wafer like chapatti filled with mixture of jaggery, coconut and sugar and fried gently on a skillet), dharwad peda, gokak kardantu and shavige payasa (made of milk, vermicelli, sugar and cardamom).

Apart from the local cuisines, the restaurants in Mysore do serve North Indian, Chinese and Continental Cuisines.