Hotels with rooftop restaurants and views in New Delhi, ranked
Rooftop terrace tables with the domes and minarets of Jama Masjid behind at sunset
Delhi has maybe six weeks a year of perfect rooftop weather, so here are 8 kinds of hotel terrace worth chasing, what they cost from ₹350 a coffee to ₹4,000 a head, and the months to avoid entirely.
The weather window nobody warns you about
A rooftop in Delhi is a seasonal product. From late March to the end of June, daytime highs run 38-45°C and terraces do not open until 7.30pm, when it is still above 33°C. July to mid-September the monsoon closes them at half an hour's notice. From late October to January the air quality index sits between 250 and 450 for weeks at a stretch, and sitting outdoors above a main road for two hours is genuinely unpleasant and, on the worst days, unwise. Rooftop bars stay open; the view does not.
The good windows are narrow and precise. Mid-February to mid-March is the best: 22-28°C, clear light, visibility across the city. October before the burning season starts is the second. Late September, once the rain breaks, gives you the greenest views of the year. A December evening can be lovely at 12-14°C with heaters if the wind has cleared the air — check the index that afternoon rather than trusting the season. If your trip falls in May or in November, book hotels for their interiors and eat inside.
Old Delhi: the best view in the city, from the cheapest seats
Nothing in Delhi beats a rooftop facing Jama Masjid at sunset — the mosque's red sandstone goes copper, kites wheel over Meena Bazaar, and the call to prayer comes up from three directions at once. Two ways in. The restored haveli hotels in the lanes off Chandni Chowk run proper rooftop restaurants with north Indian menus at roughly ₹1,500-2,500 a head, table service and a licence. Or the small guesthouses and cafés on Matia Mahal, the lane running east from the mosque, where a rooftop chai and a plate of kebabs costs ₹350-600.
The trade-offs are honest. The haveli rooftops need a reservation and are usually full by 7pm from October to March. The Matia Mahal cafés are cheap and unforgettable but the stairs are steep, the plastic chairs are plastic chairs, and there is no alcohol anywhere in this neighbourhood. Either way, you are walking in and out through lanes that are dense and dark after 9pm — fine, but not the place to be carrying camera gear casually. Go for sunset, eat, and be back on Chandni Chowk by 9.30.
Hauz Khas Village: ruins, a lake and a lot of noise
The village lanes above the Hauz Khas reservoir hold the densest concentration of rooftop terraces in South Delhi, and the good ones look straight down onto the fourteenth-century madrasa and Firoz Shah Tughlaq's tomb with the water beyond. The handful of small hotels and guesthouses in the village itself, at ₹3,000-6,000, put you a staircase away from all of it. Drinks and a shared plate run ₹1,200-2,000 a head; the deer park behind is open for a morning walk.
This is not a quiet stay. Music from neighbouring terraces runs to 12.30am on Fridays and Saturdays, the lanes are single-file, and there is no vehicle access to most doors. If you want the view without the volume, book in the wider Hauz Khas Enclave or on Aurobindo Marg at ₹4,000-8,000 and walk in for the evening. Skip the village entirely if you are travelling with children or want to sleep before midnight at a weekend — this is a nightlife district that happens to have a monument in it.
Connaught Place: high floors over the colonnades
The Outer and Middle Circle buildings are low, so rooftop terraces here look across the whitewashed colonnades to Jantar Mantar and the Parliament House district rather than down at anything. The hotels above the circle at ₹6,000-14,000 mostly have a terrace restaurant, and several of the independent rooftop bars on the radial roads are on hotel buildings. Expect ₹1,500-3,000 a head with drinks. The atmosphere is Delhi office-and-shopping crowd rather than tourists, which makes it more interesting than it sounds.
The catch is noise and air from below: CP's inner circle is a permanent traffic loop and the terraces on the road-facing sides get all of it. Ask for a courtyard-facing or park-facing terrace, or go for the ones angled towards Central Park. Practical advantage that no other district matches — you are two minutes from Rajiv Chowk Metro, which is the busiest interchange in the network and connects to almost everywhere, and 20 minutes from the airport on the Airport Express from New Delhi station. For a first-time visitor who wants a terrace and mobility, this is the pick.
Aerocity, Gurugram and the high-floor bars
Delhi's modern skyline is not in Delhi — it is in Gurugram, where the office towers of Cyber City and Golf Course Road give hotel bars on the twentieth-plus floor a genuine city-lights view. Rooms in those hotels run ₹7,000-14,000 and the bars charge ₹2,000-4,000 a head. Aerocity's terraces are lower and look at the district and the flight path, which is more interesting than it sounds if you like watching aircraft on final approach to Terminal 3 every ninety seconds.
Neither has any historic view whatsoever, and both are enclosed and air-conditioned for large parts of the year, which rather defeats the purpose. Book these if you are already staying there for work. Do not travel across the city for them: Cyber City to Connaught Place is 30 km and can take 90 minutes at 7pm. If you want a high view inside Delhi proper, the tall hotels around Nehru Place and on the Ring Road near Bhikaji Cama Place give you the same skyline logic at ₹5,000-9,000, with far less polish.
The quiet ones: Nizamuddin, Lodhi Road and the garden hotels
The central belt around Lodhi Road, Nizamuddin and Jor Bagh is Delhi's most beautiful low-rise district — tombs, Sunder Nursery's 90 acres, Lodhi Garden's fifteenth-century domes — and the hotels there tend towards terraces and garden dining rather than sky bars. Landmark properties on Lodhi Road and around Khan Market at ₹15,000-30,000 have upper terraces looking over tree canopy to Humayun's Tomb, which at 6pm in February is as good as this city gets. Meals run ₹2,500-5,000 a head.
This is the choice for travellers who want calm. It is also the choice for anyone who found Hauz Khas exhausting. The trade-off is cost — there is very little in this belt under ₹9,000 — and the fact that dinner at Nizamuddin Basti itself, five minutes away, happens at ground level in lanes rather than on roofs, and is worth doing on Thursday evening for the qawwali at the dargah. Combine the two: qawwali at 7.30, a late terrace drink after, and you have used the neighbourhood properly.
The Agra rooftop bonus, and what to skip
If Agra is in the itinerary, its rooftops beat every one in Delhi for pure spectacle. The Taj Ganj guesthouses south of the monument at ₹1,500-4,000 all have terraces looking at the dome, and a ₹250 breakfast there at 7am, with the marble changing colour, is one of the best-value views in India. The larger Fatehabad Road hotels sell the same view from the twelfth floor for ₹8,000-30,000 a night. Ask for a photograph from the actual room; "Taj view" is applied generously.
What to skip in Delhi: any Paharganj rooftop advertised as having a view, because the view is other rooftops and a railway line, though the ₹300 breakfast is fine. Skip rooftop bookings on Diwali week, when the air is at its very worst and terraces are closed or miserable. Skip terrace dinners in May and June before 8.30pm. And skip the hotels that market a rooftop pool as a rooftop restaurant — several in Karol Bagh and Mahipalpur do, and you will find four sun loungers and a vending machine.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Hauz Khas.
Mid-February to mid-March, when daytime temperatures sit around 22-28°C, evenings are 15-18°C and the air is at its clearest of the cool season. October is the second-best window, before crop-burning smog sets in. Avoid May, June and the whole of November to early January.
From the rooftop restaurants of the restored havelis in the lanes off Chandni Chowk, at roughly ₹1,500-2,500 a head, or from the small cafés on Matia Mahal for ₹350-600. Go at sunset, book ahead between October and March, and remember this neighbourhood is entirely dry.
Mid-range by international standards and high by Indian ones. Expect ₹600-900 for a beer, ₹900-1,400 for a cocktail and ₹2,000-4,000 a head with food at hotel rooftops in Connaught Place, Gurugram and Aerocity. Hauz Khas Village runs cheaper at ₹1,200-2,000 a head.
