Old Delhi mithai and sohan halwa return at Ghantewala, reopened by Aryan Jain after the original shop closed in 2015. The business traces its founding to Lala Sukh Lal Jain in 1790, with the new premises near Chandni Chowk. Khan Market's Faqir Chand & Sons continues the bookshop founded in 1951, now run by founder Faqir Chand's great-grandson Abhinav Bamhi. Gulab Singh Johrimal makes natural fragrance oils through traditional deg-bhapka distillation, continuing the family attar business established in 1816.
Founded in 1790 by Lala Sukh Lal Jain, this Chandni Chowk sweet shop served Mughal royalty and colonial-era Delhi for over two centuries before closing in 2015; eighth-generation descendant Aryan Jain has since reopened it nearby at Maliwara Tiraha Bazar.
Best for Sohan halwa and Old Delhi mithai
Ghantewala was founded in 1790 by Lala Sukh Lal Jain, a sweet-maker who migrated to Delhi from Rajasthan and first sold mishri mawa, a Rajasthani specialty, before building a reputation across the Mughal court. According to the shop's own oft-repeated history, its name comes from a bell-ringer (ghantawala) at the Red Fort who became a devoted regular customer. The 1857 edition of the newspaper Dihli Urdu Akhbar recorded rebel soldiers from other regions being won over by Delhi's comforts, singling out Ghantewala's sweets by name — one of the earliest documented press references to an Indian sweet shop. Ghantewala continued operating through Mughal rule, British colonial administration and into independent India, drawing visitors including national political figures, before closing in 2015 after 225 years, a closure widely attributed to disputes among family shareholders and the pressures of modern food-safety regulation on a legacy business. Aryan Jain, described as the family's eighth-generation custodian, and Sushant Jain revived the brand, reopening a shop nearby in Chandni Chowk at Maliwara Tiraha Bazar, Katra Shah N Shah, combining the original recipes with updated operations.
Bahrisons Booksellers is a family-run bookshop in New Delhi's Khan Market, with a history beginning in 1953. Balraj Bahri started the business in post-partition India, and its catalogue now ranges from fiction to specialist non-fiction. Readers can browse children's books as well as titles on subjects such as politics and history through its online shop.
Best for Fiction and wide-ranging non-fiction at a Khan Market bookshop
Delhi attar house founded 1816 by Lala Gulab Singh and his son Lala Johrimal, originally 'Gulab Gundhi ki Dukaan.' Still family-run in its seventh generation, producing natural fragrance oils via traditional deg-bhapka distillation.
Best for Historic family attar and perfume merchant since 1816.
Gulab Singh Johrimal is a Delhi perfumery founded in 1816 by Lala Gulab Singh, originally from Jhajjar, and his son Lala Johrimal. It began as an attar-manufacturing business known as 'Gulab Gundhi ki Dukaan' and, according to local accounts, counted the poet Ghalib among its early customers. The company's head office has long been on Dariba Kalan, considered Old Delhi's oldest retail market. Still run by the family - now in its seventh generation - the house produces natural fragrance oils using traditional deg-bhapka distillation, a copper-still method for extracting scent from flowers, wood and other botanicals.
Vaish at Rivoli is a bespoke tailoring house at Regal Building, next to PVR Rivoli Cinema, Connaught Place, New Delhi. Founded in 1940 by O.P. Vaish, it is now run by his son Ashok and grandson Sachin, making custom suits and formal menswear only.
Best for Third-generation bespoke suits, shirts, tuxedos, overcoats, and Indian formalwear
Vaish at Rivoli is a bespoke tailoring house in Connaught Place, New Delhi, founded in 1940 by O.P. Vaish. Business listings describe Mr. Vaish beginning his tailoring career serving Connaught Place's clientele during the 1940s, a period when the area also hosted Allied military officers stationed in Delhi during the Second World War. The business has stayed in family hands for three generations and is now run by his son, Ashok Vaish, and grandson, Sachin.
The shop is located at 25, Regal Building, next to the former PVR Rivoli Cinema in Connaught Place, and specializes exclusively in made-to-measure tailoring — sources are consistent that it does not stock ready-made suits.
Devan's has sourced and roasted coffee from Delhi's Khanna Market since 1962, now run by a third generation. The catalog spans single-origin beans and custom blends to cold brew bags, chicory, and Nespresso-compatible capsules.
Best for Catalog spans single-origin beans and custom blends to cold brew bags, chicory
Devan's has been sourcing and roasting coffee from the same Khanna Market address in Delhi's Lodhi Colony since 1962, which makes the current operation a three-generation family business rather than a single founder's shop still running on its original owner. The company's own description is specific about the work involved — sourcing and expertly roasting the best single origin coffees and skilfully crafting blends — for what it counts as nearly six decades, a claim that lines up with the 1962 founding date rather than rounding up. The catalog reflects a business that has kept adding formats rather than sticking to one: single-origin beans, custom blends, cold brew and hot brew bags, chicory blends aimed at a more traditional filter-coffee drinker, imported coffee, and Nespresso-compatible capsules for customers who've moved to pod machines, plus a complementary tea line. Customer testimonials cited on the company's own site reference relationships going back fifty years and beyond — a detail that, paired with the three-generation framing, suggests a business built more on repeat, long-term customers than one-time tourist traffic. For a shopper today, Devan's reads as a rare case of a mid-century Delhi roaster that adapted its product line, capsule compatibility included, without relocating from its original market address.
Hazoorilal Narang opened his first counter in Chandni Chowk's Dariba in 1952, and the third generation now designs diamond, polki and gold pieces under the Legacy name. GIA-trained family members run the Greater Kailash and South Extension showrooms and take commissions.
Best for Diamond, polki, and gold pieces designed by the third generation
Running from the same Dariba Kalan counter in Old Delhi since 1816, Gulab Singh Johrimal distills attars by the traditional deg-bhapka method under seventh-generation perfumer Mukul Gundhi, producing ruh, bakhoor, dhoop and rose water.
Best for Running from the same Dariba Kalan counter in Old Delhi since 1816
Gulab Singh Johrimal has traded from the same Dariba Kalan address in Old Delhi since 1816, when Lala Gulab Singh — an entrepreneur from Jhajjar in what is now Haryana — and his son Lala Johrimal opened a traditional perfumery on what is still the oldest retail market street in the old city. The house works by the deg-bhapka method, a hydro-distillation technique the family traces to the Indus Valley Civilisation: flowers, grasses and earth are packed into a copper still (deg) and condensed through a receiving vessel (bhapka) into a sandalwood or jojoba base, with no synthetic solvents involved. Mukul Gundhi, described as the seventh-generation torchbearer and master perfumer, now runs the counter, continuing a line the family surname itself reflects — "Gundhi" is Sanskrit for perfumer. The range includes single-note attars, ruh (pure distillates), bakhoor, dhoop and rose water, but its best-known productions resist synthetic replication entirely: Ruh Gulab, extracted from Indian Rosa Damascena and marketed as one of India's most expensive scents; Attar Mitti, distilled to capture the smell of parched earth after the first monsoon rain; and Attar Hina, a spiced-sandalwood blend said to have been favored by the poet Mirza Ghalib. Two centuries in, the shop still runs as a working still rather than a bottling counter for outsourced oils.
A seven-generation Delhi jewellery house tracing its lineage to the walled city of Shahjahanabad, Shri Ram Hari Ram is known for polki, gold and diamond bridal jewellery. Its flagship showroom in Saket offers personalised appointments, custom design and upgrading services.
D-7, Block D, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024, India / New Delhi / India
Inside Retail Asia (2024) records CEO Palak Shah as fourth-generation Banarasi textile manufacturers; official stores page lists a Defence Colony walk-in.
Best for Banarasi textiles from a fourth-generation manufacturing family.
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit Instagram ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗