Udipi Cafe

Pittsburgh eating at its best. Unpretentious. Made with love. Flavor that lingers.

Spicy, tasty, generous portions, felt like we were visiting a restaurant in India. My husband was the only white guy, but the place was packed. If Udipi Café were near me, I’d being going every week!

This is the worst Udipi Café I’ve ever been to. The service was horrible and the food was just OK. The restaurant wasn’t clean. We waited for 10 mins to order the dessert but nobody took our order. Never going there again.

Most tasteful food I have had in some time. The spices are on point and you will undoubtedly leave with a full stomach. Definitely worth a try if you have never eaten South Indian food

Best South Indian food we had in Pittsburgh, PA. Worth the wait. Masala Dosa was the best with Mango Lassi. They don’t serve alcohol but you can bring your own.

We’ve been to this restaurant on memorial day weekend. There are huge crowds at the near by SV temple and it reflected in this restaurant as well.
We got the table without much wait but it took more than 20 minutes for the waiter to show up to take order. My kid is already very hungry and getting impatient. But our order items came relatively very fast. The items are very delicious and came in generous proportions.
We will definitely visit this restaurant again but NOT on a long weekend.

Authentic and affordable South Indian food that is absolutely amazing. Highly recommend the Idli as an appetizer (mainly for the coconut chutney that comes with it. I ate the entire cup with a spoon).

We were driving through the area and I had a craving for Indian food, so I stopped by here and ordered several items to go: masala dosa, spring dosa, and palak paneer. I was impressed with how fast they got it all ready (10 minutes). The spring dosa sounded good on paper, but tasted quite bland in real life. The masala dosa was tasty. I must also add that the masala dosa was absolutely gigantic (exactly what I was hoping for). I had to cut it up into many pieces to eat. The palak paneer was on par with every other palak paneer I’ve had. I had Udipi Café bookmarked for a while now, but sadly I didn’t find it to be that great.
Taste | 3
Atmosphere | 3
Presentation | 3
Service | 4
OVERALL | 3

The best And most authentic Udipi restaurant I haven been to. Authentic, light, good portions and lightly priced. Amazing. A must stop for anyone driving past especially on the highway.

If an Indian restaurant is packed with Indian families eating when you walk in it has to be good. This place was great. All the food was wonderful.

Delicious vegetarian Indian cuisine. This is a little known spot in the Pittsburgh area because it is a ways outside of the city. The staff is friendly and willing to answer questions about the menu. I sat there for quite a while until I finally made eye contact with one of the waiters, and he stopped at our table.
I was asked a number of questions about the menu and received an excellent description of what each item was. Overall this is an excellent place if you are looking for vegetarian or Indian restaurant.

We had the best meal tonight at Udipi. Several in our group had gone before, but it was my first time. The food was excellent, but the staff were really a highlight. After 3 visits to the table where we told them «we need more time,» he wrote down the phone number on a placemat and said to call the front desk when they were ready. Not in a hostile way — it was hilarious. …and we did it.
The food was all delicious — reasonable but generous portion sizes with a great amount of spice. The somosas and dosa as appetizers were a highlight, with wonderful flavorful sauces. The Bhatura is a must-​get to soak up the rest of the sauces.
Also: BYOB. Their only question about what we brought was how many glasses we need.

Though busy, the service was quick.
One of the best restaurants for the taste and quality food. Authentic South Indian. Loved samosas and Mysore Masala Dosa.
You don’t really care about ambience that much when you have real good food!

The most authentic Indian food I have had in Pittsburgh! I will always go back to this place.

Great South Indian vegetarian food at good prices.
Today I enjoyed a spicy Rasam (soup) followed by a Mysore dosa.
The dosa was crisp and hot filled with spiced potato. The dosa cane with sambar and coconut chutney.
Low key surroundings with pleasant staff. Seems a great place for families with children.

As others before me have said, the strength here is NOT the service. However, if you’re in the mood to settle in for a while, put down your phone and chat with your dinner companions, and then «ooh» and «aah» over the most authentic South Indian food… you’ve come to the right place.
The place is great — they offer impressive portions, and this is alongside relatively cheap prices. Despite having the vibe that they might not take credit cards… they DO! Most every offering has a tasty coconut chutney and sambhar (lightly spiced lentil soup) that comes along side the main course. This is super traditional in South Indian cooking, so kudos for authenticity.
This is a great place for people with special diets. They offer many many many lentil and chickpea flour only dishes (again, very traditional for South Indian cooking). For the friend who is vegetarian or vegan but feels like they’ve exhausted Pittsburgh’s offerings, this would be a pretty impressive date spot. The food is authentic, having recently returned from a trip to India, I can vouch for this. The heat profile is moderate, meaning you won’t be crying, but you will feel the burn with some of their dishes. Likewise, if you are sensitive to heat, you can always stick with the plethora of tasty fried lentil dishes that come with mild coconut chutney.
The downsides are mostly those that others have voiced — the poor service (which also includes that the servers aren’t great at explaining dishes to you if you don’t already know what you are ordering), and the iffy ambiance. I actually wasn’t a giant fan of the spicing on some dishes (not the heat, the actual use of salt and spices). My concern was that they sometimes were blander than I’d hoped. Now, I will say, when you order Idli (lentil pancake), expect a gluten free version of very spongy wonder bread. This is traditional, but I was kind of unimpressed with the dish. If you soak it in coconut chutney and sambhar, though, it’s pretty good.
I’ll certainly be back, because the flavors are great, and there’s nowhere else in the area to get this kind of food. If they just improved and tweaked some of their problem areas, this place would be a total destination.

Despite living in Curry Hill in Manhattan, I have to get my fix every time I am back in Pittsburgh. Damn Udipi. You are too good. Don’t let the outside deceive you. This place is for real. Everything is super fresh and the spices will enthrall you. This time we split poori, Palak Paneer, and the Baigan Ka Bharya — amazing. Everytime though — everything I order always blows me away. It is vegetarian only — but you don’t miss it when the flavors are this good.

The proper south Indian restaurant with legit food. I have tried the southIndian thali and the dosas here. It’s the closest you can get to south Indian food in the USA. To go with all the idlis, dosas and chutneys, there is either masala chai or filter coffee south Indian style which i love to the core.
One must try this place out if the area for sure

I knew I hit the ethnic food jackpot when I walked into Udipi because I was literally the only non-​brown person there. This has always been my rule of thumb when it comes to ethnic food… trust the ethnic people! This restaurant is pretty casual and spacious. It looks more like a family diner. The service was super friendly and accommodating. They kept checking up on our party to make sure we were enjoying our food.
The menu was straightforward and all the cuisines are clearly explained. This is a vegetarian restaurant, so all of the dishes are vegetarian. Since I came with a large party, I had the opportunity to try a little bit of everything. I don’t remember the exact names, but everything I tried was delicious, from the dosa to the rice dishes. Even though this place is vegetarian, I think non-​vegetarians will still really enjoy the food because of the well-​blended flavors. For those unable to handle a little heat, be careful what you order because some dishes are naturally spicy. If there’s «spicy» in the name, it is most likely really spicy.
Overall, I highly recommend Udipi to all the vegetarian and Indian food lovers out there. It’s a bit out of the way, but worth the drive. The food was well executed and quite authentic.

This was my second time dining at Udipi Café. We had friends visiting from NJ and my husband was really excited to take them here, as Udipi Café served authentic Indian food, and since 2 of my friends are Indian, would appreciate it and also help recommend what foods to order.
When one of my friends heard the name Udipi Café, he immediately told us it was a chain restaurant and that UC’s food was not very good, mediocre to say the least.
We still went, and 3 of us ordered the Chana Bhatura, which was a large puffy bread served with chick peas curry garnished with onions. I thought the whole thing was very tasty and filling, the puffy bread is brought out as a fried pastry with air filled in it, like a soccer ball, and deflates within a couple of minutes. I also recommended my husband to try the paper masala dosa, since I had it the week before in NJ and it was delicious. The dosa was not as huge as the 3 ft long one I had in NJ, but my husband enjoyed very much as well. I thought the sambhar that was served with the dosa was a little too sweet though. The mango lassi was also very good, though I did not have it this time, my friend finished the whole drink within minutes, because it was so good, she couldn’t stop drinking it.
Service was great, and our waiter was very nice. Will definitely be coming back to try their other stuff.