Ritz Classic

Panaji, India

Ritz Classic has served Goan food in Panaji since 1978, outlasting every wave of tourist-facing restaurants that opened and closed around it. The menu covers Goan Catholic staples: sorpotel, vindaloo, prawn curry, and chouriço fry. Lunchtime fills the room with government workers and locals who know that no hotel restaurant in town does Goan food with this consistency. No frills, no ambience campaign. The chouriço arrives in a small dish, cooked in its own fat with fried onions, eaten with rice or poi.

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Sausages served here

Goan Chorizo

Goa, India

Goan chorizo is a small, intensely spiced pork sausage cured in palm vinegar and dried in the Goan sun. Fiery red from Kashmiri chillies, dark with the funk of vinegar and toddy, pungent with garlic and cumin, it bears no resemblance to its Iberian namesake beyond the word itself. Portuguese colonists brought the tradition to Goa in the 16th century, but local cooks replaced wine vinegar with toddy vinegar, swapped paprika for Kashmiri chilli, and added turmeric, cumin, coriander, and a hit of cinnamon. What emerged is one of India's most distinctive cured meats: sour, hot, fatty, with a fermented edge that no Spanish chorizo has ever come close to.

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