Ladi Pav is the bread itself, not a finished dish: a ladi, or row, of soft white rolls baked joined together in a tray so their sides stay pale and tender while only the tops brown. You buy it as a slab and tear off as many rolls as you need, each one with two soft torn faces and a thin crust on top. This is the structural backbone of Mumbai street food, the carrier under vada pav, pav bhaji, misal, and dozens of other plates, and its whole job is to be pillowy, mildly sweet, and sturdy enough to soak sauce without collapsing.
The make is a simple enriched dough handled with care. Refined wheat flour, yeast, a little sugar, salt, and fat are mixed and kneaded until smooth and elastic, then proofed until soft and airy. The dough is divided into equal balls and set side by side in a tray so they prove and bake touching, which is what produces the signature soft sidewalls; rolls baked apart get an all-over crust and miss the point. After a final rise they bake until the tops are golden, and many bakeries brush the surface with butter or milk straight out of the oven for sheen and a tender crust. Good execution is even-sized rolls, a fine close crumb, a faint sweetness, and walls soft enough to tear cleanly by hand. Sloppy execution is dense or gummy crumb from under-proofing, a tough all-around crust, uneven rolls that tear ragged, or a staleness that no amount of griddling can rescue.
Its variations are mostly about how it is used and how fresh it is. Split and griddled cut-side down in butter on a tawa, it crisps at the faces and turns into the platform for a hot filling; left untoasted it stays soft for mopping a gravy. Some bakeries make it slightly sweeter or richer, and whole-wheat and multigrain versions exist, though the classic is deliberately plain so it never competes with what it carries. It is the same family of soft roll used in vada pav, but that assembled potato-fritter sandwich is a dish in its own right and deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. Ladi pav is judged on softness, freshness, and how well it tears and soaks, the quiet bread that makes a whole street cuisine work.