Malvan eats brilliantly. The local Malvani cuisine — heavy on coconut, kokum, and the small red bird's-eye chillies that grow in the Konkan — is one of India's great regional food traditions and considered by many the country's best seafood cooking. The signature dishes are Malvani fish curry (made with grated coconut, ginger, and a paste of red chillies), sol kadhi (a cooling pink drink of kokum and coconut milk), and fried bombil, surmai, or pomfret in a coarse red masala crust.
The strip of restaurants along the seafront and just behind it serves all of the classics at very fair prices. Atithi Bamboo and Chaitanya are the perennial local recommendations; both are honest, busy, and packed at lunchtime. Don't leave without trying a thali — the unlimited rice-and-curry plate that lets you taste five or six dishes in a single sitting.