Netram Moolchand & Sons

In the tight, humming lanes of Katra — the student-and-shopper quarter that hugs the University of Allahabad — one address has been feeding Prayagraj since long before the city changed its name: Netram Moolchand & Sons.

• By the family's own reckoning the shop traces its origins to around 1855, making it, by that account, one of the old, continuously run mithai-and-namkeen houses in the confluence city, now steered by the fifth generation of the same lineage.
• For generations of Allahabadis, "chalo Netram" has been shorthand for breakfast, festival sweets and the small daily rituals of a city that takes its food seriously.
• The signature is deceptively humble: a plate of piping urad-dal kachori, its crust shattering-crisp because it is fried in pure desi ghee, ladled over with a thin, peppery aloo-sabzi and a spoon of tangy chutney.
• It is the quintessential Prayagraj breakfast, eaten standing at the counter as the morning market wakes around you.
• Regulars pair it with dahi-jalebi — hot, coiled jalebi drowned in chilled sweet curd — or move on to the glass cases of mithai, where seasonal specialities and everyday khoya sweets sit in glossy rows.
• The register here is homely rather than fancy: this is a working sweet shop, not a showroom, and the queue is its best advertisement. Katra itself rewards a wander.
• The narrow bazaar streets around the shop brim with book stalls, cloth traders, tea corners and the easy student energy of the university neighbourhood, and the eatery makes a natural first or last stop on a walking loop through old Prayagraj.
• Come early for the freshest kachori; weekend and festival mornings draw the longest lines.
• The good news for vegetarian travellers is that this corner of the city is built for you.
• Netram Moolchand & Sons is a fully vegetarian establishment, and Katra's surrounding lanes are thick with pure-veg kachori-sabzi counters, chaat and samosa stalls, jalebi-imarti fryers and thali kitchens.
• Ask for plain (bhang-free) thandai in summer, seek out the pure-veg tea-and-toast corners near the university gates for a light bite, and you can graze the whole quarter without a single non-vegetarian item crossing your plate.