4.4 stars · around 1,900 Google reviews · 9 am–10 pm most days, but Tuesday 9 am–8 pm and Thursday noon–8 pm · Bir Colony Road, Suja · about ₹200–400 for one. Ratings and hours checked August 2026.
Four days into a trip to Bir, most people hit the same wall. Everything they have eaten has been a pancake, a pizza, a pasta or a brownie. This is the café that fixes that.
AVVAs is a South Indian kitchen on the Bir Colony road at Suja, near the landing site, looking out over the paddies. It is the most specifically-loved place on this list — the cooking has an unfussy, generous register, made the way it is meant to be made rather than adapted for a tourist palate.
Who runs it
It was started in 2018 by the Dikonda family, who moved up from Pune to do it. Suraj had been working in advertising, visited as a tourist, and spent roughly eight months talking his parents into the idea; his father Anil was semi-retired and reluctant, and it was his mother Sunanda who eventually said they should try it and could always go back.
Sunanda cooks. That is the whole point of the place, and it is where the name comes from — avva means mother in Telugu, and the café is named for her. Everything is made to order, the chutneys and spice powders are ground in-house, nothing is carried forward to the next day, and the coffee is sourced down in Delhi rather than bought locally. You can taste all four of those decisions.
What to order
Start with what arrives unasked: a welcome drink built on rasam, tomato and boiled black chana that people write about specifically. It is an odd, savoury, brilliant way to begin a meal.
Then the dosas. The Avva's special dosa, layered with three different pastes, is the house version and the one to get. The podi dosa — dry gunpowder chutney folded through — is the order for anyone who already knows South Indian food, and the Chettinad dosa and the chilli-garlic uttapam both come up again and again. Beyond that there is idli, medu vada, dahi vada, appam, Chettinad appe and puliyogare rice.
And the filter coffee. This is the real reason to make the trip. Filter coffee in Himachal is usually a sweet instant approximation; here it is the actual decoction-and-hot-milk version, and coffee drinkers notice within one sip. The mango shake is the alternative if you are not in a coffee mood.
The honest bit
Two things. This is a small team, and when the room fills the service visibly struggles — go off-peak if you can. And a minority of South Indian diners find the sambar thinner than their standards; if sambar is your benchmark, order the dosa with podi and chutney instead and you will be fine.
One useful clarification: the café started as a vegetarian kitchen and the non-vegetarian menu was added later, served on the first floor as a separate section. So there is meat if you want it, and a clearly separated vegetarian ground floor and garden if you would rather not sit near it.
The hours are the thing to actually plan around. Most days run 9 am to 10 pm, but Tuesday shuts at 8 pm and Thursday does not open until noon — so a Thursday breakfast here is not a plan. Outdoor seating looks toward the landing site, and watching gliders come down over a podi dosa is a very good way to spend a morning.
If it's closed, or full
AVVAs never takes a full day off, but a Thursday morning will catch you out. Silver Linings opens at nine every day except Wednesday and is a few minutes down the same road; June 16 opens at nine every day but Tuesday. If it is cheap, unfussy Indian food you are after rather than South Indian specifically, Cho Cho's is the cheapest and warmest meal in the valley.
AVVAs is the antidote to four days of pancakes. The full roundup: the best cafés in Bir. Basing yourself here for a while? Our Bir Billing workation guide covers where to work, eat and wander, and Bir beyond paragliding covers the monasteries, the tea factory and the Rajgundha trail. Flying while you are here? See paragliding in Bir Billing.
← All blog postsQuestions, answered
Where can I get South Indian food in Bir?+
AVVAs on the Bir Colony road at Suja is the one — dosa, uttapam, appam, idli, medu vada and proper decoction filter coffee, cooked by Sunanda Dikonda, whose family moved from Pune to open it in 2018.
Is AVVAs Cafe vegetarian?+
It began as a vegetarian kitchen and still is on the ground floor and in the garden. A non-vegetarian menu was added later and is served upstairs on the first floor as a separate section.
What are AVVAs Cafe's opening hours?+
Roughly 9 am to 10 pm on most days, but Tuesday closes early at 8 pm and Thursday does not open until noon. There is no full weekly closure — just do not plan a Thursday breakfast there.