Since 2006 · 19 restaurants
One full handi, sealed with dough and cooked on dum. Made for a gathering.
A handi is cooked for 10 guests or more.
Rice and meat go into a single deep handi together, the lid is sealed shut with dough, and it cooks slowly on a low fire. This is dum, the traditional way Hyderabadi biryani has always been cooked for a crowd.
One handi comfortably serves forty guests. A larger handi serves fifty. For any other count, from ten guests with no upper limit, the handi is cooked to your number, so the size of the party is never the limit.
The handi stays sealed the whole way, so the steam is still trapped inside when you open it in front of your guests. That is half the reason to order one.
Mehfil comes from Grand Hotel, a Hyderabad name with ninety one years behind it. In 2006 we opened our own restaurant in Narayanguda.
Students kept telling us the same thing. They loved the biryani, they just could not afford it every day. So we made the Single Biryani: around seven hundred grams for fifty rupees. Many biryani restaurants in Hyderabad sell one now.
We fed one guest for fifty. Then the city started eating together.That is where the Handi Biryani came from. The same dum biryani and the same cooks, made in one large handi for forty or fifty guests at a time, the way biryani was always cooked for a gathering.
Today Mehfil runs nineteen restaurants across India and the UAE, and the handi has not changed.
A handi is one large cooking vessel. Rice and meat go into a single deep handi together, the lid is sealed shut with dough, and it cooks slowly over a low fire. This is dum, the traditional Hyderabadi method, and it is how biryani has always been cooked for a gathering rather than portioned into boxes.
One handi comfortably serves 40 guests and a larger handi serves 50. For any other number Mehfil cooks to order and the restaurant manager works out the price with you on the phone, so the size of the party is never the limit.
Chicken Handi Biryani is ₹5,500 for 40 guests and ₹7,000 for 50. Mutton Handi Biryani is ₹7,500 for 40 and ₹9,000 for 50. Veg Handi Biryani is ₹4,500 for 40 and ₹6,000 for 50. Every price covers that count in full and includes mirchi ka salan and dahi raita. The manager confirms the final total on the call.
No. No payment and no advance is taken on the website. A manager from your chosen Mehfil restaurant telephones to confirm the time and the total, and nothing is cooked until you agree.
Anywhere in Hyderabad. Sixteen Mehfil restaurants take handi orders and you collect from whichever one is nearest you, so the city is covered whether you are north, south, east or west. The areas below are simply what each restaurant sits closest to, not a limit on who can order. Hitech City (Madhapur, Kondapur, Kavuri Hills), Gachibowli (Kothaguda, Kondapur), Shaikpet (Raidurg), Banjara Hills (NBT Nagar, Masab Tank), Nizampet X Road (Hydernagar, Bachupally), KPHB (Kukatpally, JNTU), SR Nagar (Balkampet, Ameerpet), Mehfil Exclusive and Udamgadda (Mailardevpally, Aramghar), Narayanguda (Himayatnagar, Barkatpura), Attapur (Mehdipatnam, Rajendranagar), Dilsukhnagar (Moosarambagh, Malakpet), Uppal (Habsiguda, Ramanthapur), BHEL Township (Lingampally, Chandanagar), ECIL (A S Rao Nagar, Anupuram) and Suncity, also written Sun City (Bandlaguda Jagir, Vikas Nagar).
There is no fixed notice: you can order ahead of your date, but most orders are placed and confirmed on the same day. Your handi goes on the fire roughly forty minutes before it is due and stays sealed until it reaches you.
Yes. Choose Other, enter your total guests, whether that is 30, 80 or 300, and the manager prices it with you on the call.
Yes, and most handi orders are exactly that. Office lunches, weddings and receptions, birthdays, housewarmings and family functions all book the same way. Tell the manager the occasion on the call and the restaurant works the timing around it.
One handi, sized for forty guests, with mirchi ka salan and dahi raita alongside. For fifty guests take the larger handi, and if your count falls between the two, take the larger one. Nobody has ever complained about too much biryani.
Mehfil runs 19 restaurants across India and the UAE. Sixteen of the seventeen in Hyderabad cook Handi Biryani for gatherings, and those sixteen are the branches you choose from here. The seventeenth, Box O’ Mehfil, shares Mehfil Gachibowli’s building and has a menu of its own. The two in Dubai cook a handi too, arranged with the restaurant directly.
Mehfil Group of Restaurants opened in Narayanguda, Hyderabad in 2006 and comes from Grand Hotel, a Hyderabad name with ninety one years of legacy. Mehfil originated both the Single Biryani and the Mehfil Handi Biryani, and now runs 19 restaurants across India and the UAE. More at mehfilbiryani.com.