Fujiya forever: A love letter to Malcha Marg's time-trapped Indo-Chinese icon

There are restaurants you go to for the food. And then there are restaurants you go to for the feeling or as Gen Z would call it "the feels". Fujiya, perched on the leafy embassy-strewn stretch of Malcha Marg in Delhi, casually falls into the second category.

- ADVAITA KALA

Of course, it serves food—and plenty of it, mostly Indo-Chinese, with a loyal clientele who swear by the butter garlic prawns and chilli chicken—but that's not why you go there. You go for the time travel.

Step into Fujiya and it's as if someone pressed pause on 1994. Not in a curated, intentional way that today's hipster cafés strive for—no Edison bulbs, no artisanal soy sauces, no wall of fake foliage and servers with vibes—but in the gloriously unselfconscious way of a place that simply is. The interiors are drenched in dramatic shades of red. Burgundy upholstered booths, crimson walls, thick red curtains that look like they might once have done duty in a Doordarshan studio—all conspiring to wrap you in a velvet-draped flashback, with a little glitter.

And then on one wall there's Mount Fuji—incongruous and oddly endearing—a nod to the restaurant's name (Fujiya!) and a parade of dishes that wouldn't pass muster in either Beijing or Tokyo but are beloved in Delhi before we "refined" our tastebuds with "authenticity." But ask any Dilliwala, falling back into the culinary embrace of Indian-styled Chinese is not a lapse; it's an homage!