Lucknow: Home of the best biryani in the world

If you want to eat the best biryani in the world you'll need to travel to Lucknow, where the dish of slow-cooked lamb and rice was created. A one-hour flight from Delhi, Lucknow is the capital of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It's a city crammed with history, culture and fine cuisine. It's also a city in flux, with a plethora of garish shopping malls and convention centres providing stark contrast to the magnificent architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries.

As the young generation flocks to the new food halls for hamburgers, noodles and chicken tikka masala pizza, there are fears that some of the subtleties of the local Awadhi cuisine could slip away.

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Mr Husain, my culinary guide for the trip, tells me that although there are around 60 types of kebab made in the city, the number is falling. "There was a chef who made lamb kebabs tied with saffron-soaked thread, but when he died in 1996 there was no one else who knew how to make them. Now his restaurant has been converted into a spice shop."

Further investigation into Lucknow's food scene would have to wait, as my first day was given over to a whistlestop tour of historical monuments. One hundred and fifty years ago, the British Residency rocked to the sound of gun and cannon fire as the British East India Company was defeated by rebels in the Siege of Lucknow.

What's left of the walled complex of houses, mosque, banquet hall and other buildings is riddled with bullet and cannonball holes. Anil, my well-informed tour guide, told me that the bloody mutiny was triggered by the introduction of the Enfield rifle. Its cartridges were greased with a mixture of beef and pork fat which both Hindu and Muslim soldiers refused to use.

Lucknow is known as the City of the Nawabs, named after the Persian nobleman who ruled the city from the 1730s to the mid-1800s. The Nawabs left behind a legacy of opulent buildings which give the Taj Mahal a run for its money. It is amazing that the intricately decorated vaulted ceiling of the 50-metre main hall of the Bara Imambara hasn't come crashing down, given that it has no supporting columns. The wildly over-the-top interior of the nearby Chota Imambara includes countless chandeliers and a solid-silver throne that would turn the Beckhams green with envy.

As the tour progressed, my head began to spin with Nawab-related dates and statistics. I couldn't remember if it was the 10th Nawab who had 320 wives or if there was a 320th Nawab who had 10 wives.

It was time for the much less taxing pleasure of a ride through Lucknow on the back of an electric rickshaw. Life is lived on the roadside here and you are as likely to see someone getting a wet shave as you are to pass someone buying bananas from a hand-drawn cart.

Away from the grand architecture, Lucknow becomes confusing, a warren of shabby back streets contrasting with dusty main drags that have few identifying features. Even the cattle lying in the middle of the road look the same. The best restaurants are often grim-looking holes in the wall that a Michelin inspector would condemn rather than commend.

Luckily, the ebullient Mr Husain, deputy sales manager of the Taj Residency Hotel, part-time television newsreader and native of the city, had agreed to show me around a few of his favourite haunts. We set off for breakfast at the famous Net Ram restaurant, me sweltering in light trousers and short sleeves, Mr Husain in ultra-smart suit and tie looking ready to read the 10 o'clock headlines rather than tuck in to lentil-filled puri bread with tomato and pea curry and dried vegetables.

Net Ram has been operating since 1920 and is one of the best places to watch jalebi sweets being made. This is a two-man job; the first swirls batter into hot oil from a pot with a hole in the bottom, making pretzel-like shapes; the second scoops the sweets into a vat of sugar syrup. They're delicious eaten fresh and still warm.

On reflection, eating "soufflé" (actually a sweetened cream topped with nuts and silver leaf) scooped from a huge cake at the side of a busy roundabout at Gole Darwaza in the hot Indian sun was probably not the most sensible culinary act of my life. But I had decided not to be squeamish about street food. Besides, the dessert was cooled over ice, and the traffic fumes added their own piquancy.

Customers gather at Idris Biryaniwala in Patanala Chowk at around midday. Discs of bread stained golden yellow with saffron pile up, while pots on hot charcoal are tended by vigilant cooks. Everyone is waiting for the biryani to be ready. When it finally arrives it's a simple but delicious meal of tender chunks of gently spiced mutton with moist grains of the finest quality basmati rice. A dish worth waiting, and travelling, for.

With several other stops, including Mubeen's restaurant in Akbari Gate Road for nahari kulcha (bread with mutton gravy) and the Sethi Paan shop near KD Singh Babu Stadium for betel leaves stuffed with sweet masala, my gastronomic tour of Lucknow was nearly complete.

Except, that is, for the multi-course Awadhi feast at the Taj Residency's Oudhyana restaurant. Nawab-style dishes included galawat kebabs made with minced mutton flavoured with cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg, hara tawa lentil kebabs, a bewildering array of breads and, of course, more biryani. I'm not saying whether the version made by a brigade of chefs in the cavernous kitchens of a posh hotel is better than from a stall on the streets of Lucknow. Neither is Mr Husain.

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