Founded in 1844, this Mount Road bookseller stocks fiction, academic titles and Tamil-interest books. The house once ran the railway station bookstalls across the south and still trades under the name of its Victorian founder, Abel Joshua Higginbotham.
Best for Historic bookshop and general reading
Higginbothams is a bookshop at No. 116 Anna Salai, the road once called Mount Road, in Chennai. It describes itself as trading since 1844. Abel Joshua Higginbotham reached Madras by ship in the mid-1800s, by his company's account without ticket or papers. He found work as a librarian at the Wesleyan Book Depository. When the mission closed the shop in 1844 he bought the stock and moved the books to Mount Road under his own name. Copies of Queen Victoria's 1858 proclamation were distributed from the store. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Governor of Madras, praised its shelves of philosophy and classical literature. The firm supplied European books to Prince Edward VII on his visits and earned a place in John Murray's Handbook of the Madras Presidency. Higginbotham served as Sheriff of Madras and died in 1891. His son Charles Herbert Higginbotham took the firm onward, opening in Bangalore in an 1897 Palladian building on South Parade and setting up bookstalls at railway stations across the south. The house published Culinary Jottings for Madras in 1884 by Colonel Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert, who wrote as Wyvern. It was awarded Royal Booksellers in 1875. Higginbothams has been part of the Amalgamations Group since the 1940s, with branches at Chennai Egmore and Chennai Central stations and the airport. Scroll.in told the founder's story at length in 2018.
Set in a restored bungalow with a garden cafe, Amethyst pairs a tearoom with boutiques of Indian designer clothing, jewellery and homeware. The store leans toward handloom labels and artisanal accessories alongside patisserie and a small plant nursery.
Best for Designer boutique, homeware and garden cafe
Chennai jewellery house, Cbigs Jewels, crafting antique, temple and bridal pieces since 2005 using Kundan, Polki, Jadau, Panchaloha and Kemp stone techniques with oxidized silver. Founded by Mrs. Seetha Nagarajan, with stores in Adyar, Anna Nagar and K.K. Nagar.
A multi-designer lifestyle boutique, Cinnamon stocks contemporary Indian womenswear, jewellery and home accessories from independent labels. It mixes occasion wear and everyday cottons with craft-led accessories in its Chennai rooms.
Best for Multi-designer womenswear and accessories
This Cathedral Road boutique gathers Indian handloom textiles, block-printed fabric and folk handicrafts from across the country. Its shelves run to brass and wooden decor, cotton and silk apparel and craft-led gifting.
Best for Handloom textiles, handicrafts and home decor
Family madras-cloth house founded 1973 in NYC's Garment District by Ranjit Shah, an emigre from Chennai; long supplied Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, J.Press and others, and still weaves madras on traditional Chennai handlooms today.
Best for Madras shirts
The Original Madras Trading Company was founded in 1973 by Ranjit Shah, who emigrated from Madras (now Chennai) to New York with a suitcase of fabric swatches. Within a few years he had established OMTC on West 38th Street in Manhattan's Garment District and secured supply contracts with major American menswear houses including Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Gant, J.Crew, J.Press, Tommy Hilfiger, and L.L. Bean. Madras is a cotton fabric hand-woven in checks and plaids, traditionally associated with the city of its origin; it entered American Ivy League style in the 18th century after Elihu Yale, then governor of British Madras, donated bolts of it to the university that took his name. Now run by Shah's grandson, Prasan, the company remains based in the same Garment District headquarters and still produces madras cloth on traditional handlooms in Chennai before finishing it into clothing.
The retail arm of the Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation, Poompuhar sells work by state artisans: Swamimalai bronze idols, Thanjavur art plates, wood carving and palm-leaf ware. Its Anna Salai emporium gathers craft from across Tamil Nadu under government pricing.
This Chennai silk house specialises in pure Kanchipuram pattu sarees woven from mulberry silk with real-zari borders. Its collections span bridal wedding silks, temple-border weaves and lighter soft-silk drapes sourced from Tamil Nadu's handloom clusters.
Trading in Adyar since 1982, this South Indian sweet house makes mysore pak, adhirasam and murukku alongside a rotating counter of savoury snacks. It is known for greeting every customer with a free thayir vadai and for the bottled pickles and podis carried across the diaspora.
Best for South Indian sweets, savouries, pickles and podis
This Chennai jewelling house has worked gold and diamonds since 1900 and crafted the Sengol sceptre installed in India's new Parliament. Its showrooms are known for temple jewellery, uncut-diamond polki and bridal gold in the Tamil idiom.
Best for Heritage gold, diamond and temple jewellery
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