Correction (30 September 2026): an earlier version of this page listed venues that do not exist in Carlton, with invented addresses, prices and seat counts. It has been rewritten from scratch. Every place below was checked against its own website or official page plus at least one independent listing, and every price was copied from the venue’s own menu. Thanks to the reader who flagged it.
Lygon Street is Melbourne’s Little Italy, and the blocks between Queensberry and Elgin streets are still lined with Italian restaurants and cafes. Walk the same strip with an appetite for spice, though, and Carlton turns out to be a decent Indian town: three kitchens on Lygon Street itself, from the city end up towards Elgin Street, and a fully vegetarian dining bar around the corner on Faraday Street. It is an easy suburb to reach, too. Trams up Swanston Street stop at Melbourne University a few blocks west, and routes 1 and 6 join Lygon Street at Elgin Street and run north from there.
A quick word on what you’ll find, because “Indian” covers a subcontinent. Most Melbourne menus lean north: Punjabi tandoor dishes, butter chicken, dal makhani (black lentils simmered for hours with butter and cream; here it is $24 at Bibi Ji, $28 for Kahaani’s Dal Bukhara and $31 at Moksha) and breads pulled hot from the tandoor. South Indian cooking is a different palate, built on rice, coconut, curry leaves, mustard seeds and tamarind. Three of the four kitchens here lean north, with detours into Indo-Chinese and pasta; Kahaani is the one that maps the whole country. Every price below was copied from the venue’s own menu on 30 September 2026. Menus move, so give it a squiz before you book.
The quick picks
| If you’re after | Head to | Order this | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Street snacks, then a northern curry | Bibi Ji | Papdi chaat | $18 |
| Regional dishes you rarely see in Melbourne | Kahaani | Goat curry | $42 |
| A fully vegetarian night out | Moksha Dining & Bar | Paneer tikka masala | $32 |
| A cheap, honest feed | Flavours of Indus | Yellow dal tarka | $14 |
Bibi Ji — 179 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053
Bibi Ji’s menu calls the place “not your typical Indian joint”, and the entrées column is all street snacks. Start with chaat, the great Indian snack family that lands crunchy, sour, sweet and cool in one mouthful: papdi chaat ($18) is crisp wafers with potato and chickpeas, and in the classic build it arrives drenched in cold yoghurt, tamarind and mint chutneys under a shower of sev, the fine crunchy noodles made from chickpea flour. Pani puri (six for $12) is the do-it-yourself version: crisp shells already filled with spiced potato; you add the tangy mint, coriander and tamarind water and eat each in one go before it collapses. The curries are the northern classics, butter chicken at $27 and goat curry at $29, tandoori chicken starts at $15 for three pieces, and garlic naan is $4. Cauliflower 179 ($22), marked vegan, is the menu’s take on chicken 69, and yes, the number matches the door. Groups can take the $65-a-head banquet. The website lists hours of 5:30pm to 11pm Sunday to Thursday and 5:30pm to 1am Friday and Saturday.
Order this: papdi chaat, $18.
Kahaani — 262 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053
Kahaani means “story” in Hindi, and the dinner menu is laid out as a tour, region by region: Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai, Kerala, Hyderabad, Goa, Lucknow, Bihar, Himachal, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi. That is why you get dishes most Melbourne menus skip. Litti chokha is Bihar’s fire-baked bread served with smoked eggplant; avial ($36) is the Kerala stew of vegetables in coconut and curry leaves; gatte ki sabzi ($36) is Rajasthan’s gram-flour dumplings in a spiced yoghurt curry; and Awadhi chicken korma ($39) comes with the silky cashew gravy and hint of rose that Lucknow is famous for. The headline act is the goat curry ($42), which the menu describes as “slow-cooked goat on the bone, bold spices, deeply flavoured and hearty”. On the bone is the point: goat is lean, and the bones give the gravy its body, so order basmati rice ($8) or butter naan ($8) to mop it up. Garlic naan is $9.50, the Make My Feast banquet is $65 a head for two to eight people, and read the fine print: a $50 minimum spend per adult, plus 10% on weekends and 15% on public holidays. The website says open daily.
Order this: goat curry, $42.
Moksha Dining & Bar — 201-203 Faraday St, Carlton VIC 3053
Around the corner from Lygon Street, Moksha is fully vegetarian and cheerfully so: the “butter chicken” rigatoni ($34) is plant-based, and so is Chawla’s creamy chicken ($34), which the menu promises harmed no birds. The list wanders into fusion (biryani arancini, $22, and a paneer gnocchi), but the surest order is the classic: paneer tikka masala ($32), charred cubes of fresh cheese in a smoky, creamy tomato masala. Paneer doesn’t melt, so it stays springy and carries the sauce. Dal makhani ($31) is the slow-cooked black lentil dish the menu crowns “the undisputed royalty of lentils”, and butter naan is $9. Big tables can hand the decisions to the kitchen with the seven-course Together on a Plate menu at $89 a head (minimum two). Closed Mondays, and a 10% surcharge applies on Saturdays and Sundays.
Order this: paneer tikka masala, $32.
Flavours of Indus — 104 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053
At the city end of Lygon Street, Flavours of Indus is the value play, and its online ordering menu is where these prices come from. Yellow dal tarka ($14) is the everyday dal of the north: split lentils cooked soft, then finished with a tarka (you will also see it spelt tadka), a last-second sizzle of ghee, cumin, garlic and chilli poured over the top. Add garlic naan at $3.50 and saffron rice at $8 and two people eat well for not much. Vegetable samosas are $7.50 for two, malai kofta, the northern dish of soft paneer-and-potato dumplings in a creamy sauce, is $14.90, and mango chicken is $16.50. The menu lists lunch specials as well.
Order this: yellow dal tarka, $14.
Quick answers
Which Indian restaurants are on Lygon Street in Carlton?
Three, going by their own websites and pages: Flavours of Indus at 104 Lygon Street, Bibi Ji at 179 and Kahaani at 262. Moksha Dining & Bar is just off Lygon at 201-203 Faraday Street, and Curry in Carlton, a Pakistani kitchen, is at 192 Elgin Street; it has no menu online that we could verify, so it is not priced here. All are in Carlton 3053. Lygon Street keeps going north through Carlton North and Brunswick East, and we have not checked the restaurants up there yet.
What is the best Indian restaurant in Carlton?
It depends what you’re after. Kahaani for regional dishes you rarely see in Melbourne (goat curry $42, avial $36); Bibi Ji for street snacks and northern curries (papdi chaat $18, butter chicken $27); Moksha Dining & Bar if the table is vegetarian (paneer tikka masala $32); Flavours of Indus for a cheap feed (yellow dal tarka $14, garlic naan $3.50).
Is there a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Carlton?
Yes. Moksha Dining & Bar at 201-203 Faraday Street is fully vegetarian, right down to a plant-based “butter chicken” rigatoni at $34. Bibi Ji also lists nine vegetarian curries, from chana masala at $21 to kadhai paneer at $26.
Which Indian restaurants in Carlton are open on a Monday?
Bibi Ji’s website lists 5:30pm to 11pm Sunday to Thursday, and Kahaani’s website says it opens daily. Moksha Dining & Bar is closed on Mondays, according to the City of Melbourne’s What’s On listing and the Australian Good Food Guide. Hours change, so check before you go.
How much does a curry cost in Carlton?
Roughly $14 to $42 for a main. Flavours of Indus lists yellow dal tarka at $14 on its online menu; Bibi Ji’s curries run $21 to $29; Moksha’s mains sit between $29 and $37; Kahaani’s large plates go from $36 to $42, with a $50 minimum spend per adult. Kahaani and Moksha both add 10% on weekends.
How we checked
On 30 September 2026 we read each venue’s own website or official page and copied its address, then confirmed it against at least one independent listing on a different domain: the City of Melbourne’s What’s On directory, the Australian Good Food Guide, OpenStreetMap and Qiki Cuisines. Prices were copied from the venue’s own menu: Bibi Ji’s menu images on its website, the dinner menu PDF linked from Kahaani’s website, Moksha’s menu page, and Flavours of Indus’s online ordering menu, which may differ from prices at the table. Kahaani’s and Moksha’s menus print prices without dollar signs; we added them. This guide is built from menus and listings, not from restaurant visits, and the photos are illustrative stock images from Unsplash that show the type of dish, not the venue’s own cooking.
Places we looked at and left out: Carlton Curry House at 108 Lygon Street, whose website was offline when we checked and whose menu we could not read; Spice Mix, which is at 180 Lygon Street in Brunswick East, not Carlton; and the “near Carlton” pages run by restaurants in the CBD and Fitzroy.
Menus move. Seen something out of date? Email [email protected] with the page link and what has changed, and we will check it again.
Sources
- Bibi Ji website and menu images: bibiji.com.au and its menu page
- Bibi Ji listing: Australian Good Food Guide
- Kahaani website: kahaanimelbourne.com.au and its dinner menu PDF
- Kahaani listings: What’s On Melbourne, Australian Good Food Guide
- Moksha Dining & Bar website and menu: mokshadiningandbar.com and its menu page
- Moksha listings: What’s On Melbourne, Australian Good Food Guide
- Flavours of Indus: Facebook page and online ordering menu
- Curry in Carlton: Australian Good Food Guide, Facebook page
- Qiki Cuisines: Indian in Carlton 3053
- OpenStreetMap: Bibi Ji, Kahaani
- Wikipedia: Carlton, Victoria, Lygon Street
