From Gurugram and Hyderabad to Bengaluru and yes, even
Mumbai, the new guard of ‘Bombay-style’ restaurants are boldly making their
presence felt on India’s culinary map.
By Raul Dias
Blame it on diner apathy, owner ennui or just plain
old economic unfeasibility—whatever be the reason—it’s no big surprise that the
original ‘Bombay-style’ restaurant genus in Mumbai is dying an excruciatingly
slow death. While its already shutters down for some of the old vanguards like
Dhobi Talao’s Bastani & Co. and Brabourne, others like the dusty old Kyani
and Sassasian are tottering along with an arthritic limp.
Interestingly, while that’s happening, around the country, riding the crest of
the nostalgia wave is a bunch of zeitgeisty new champions of the genre. Places
that are surging ahead, breathing new life into a graph that’s waning rather
woefully. Places that are making it their mission to give a stylish new fillip
to Irani joint edible vestiges like good old brun maska and kheema pao,
along with Mumbai street food classics like dabeli
and bhel puri–all laced with the
right doses of nostalgia thrown in for good measure, Bentwood chairs sitting
atop vintage mosaic tiles et al!
Even cities like London and New York have cottoned onto this trend with the
Dishoom chain of Irani-style restaurants and Talli Joe in the former and Paowalla
in the latter taking a determined bite off the ‘schmaltz-y’ pie.
Here are a few desi doppelgangers
channeling the Bombay restaurant nostalgia:
GYMKHANA
91, Mumbai
Inspiration
is much more than a mere 11-letter word for the people behind this spanking
new, nostalgia-driven bar and
restaurant located slap bang in the center of Mumbai’s de facto restaurant super
hub of Lower Parel. Besides pinching the first part of its name from the
uber-popular and similarly themed Gymkhana restaurant in London’s posh Mayfair
neck of the woods, Gymkhana 91 has a certain ‘Old Boys Club’ look and feel to
it without being stuffy and foreboding. Here, one spies—as you sip on libations
like the vodka-based Rustom nu soda and the bourbon-spiked Mumbai presidency—wrought
iron chandeliers that hang from a dark-lacquered oak pitched roof, cut glass cathedral
windows and an eight-foot clock keeping with the old times when gymkhanas across
Mumbai had a clock tower in the vicinity. The food on offer here ranges from
inspired (there we go again!) egg dishes like Kejriwal toast and the
whimsically named Parsi-style Rati Aunty’s chutney
edu pattice, to ersatz takes on more eggy breakfast classics like Parsi akuri and Bombay’s masala omelette that are not so blithe opening acts to mains like patra ni macchi, Byculla’s chicken Russian
cutlets and mutton kheema pao.
RUSTOM’S,
New Delhi
A Parsi mom-n-pop gone a wee mod. That’s the perfect way to describe this
smallish restaurant in South Delhi that opened a year or so ago. Run by former
food writer and bawi, Kainaz
Contractor and former hotelier Rahul Dua, Rustom’s may claim to go beyond the
ubiquitous dhansak and salli boti offerings of most so-called
Parsi restaurants. But then one is instantly drawn in by a series of Parsi
clichés that take the form of vintage grandfather clocks, antique crockery
cupboards and an ambient soundtrack featuring the likes of old-school classics—The
Beatles, Abba, Miles Davis and the Parsi favourite Frank Sinatra! Just as you
enjoy the toothsome brilliance of the maghi
na cutlet and the kolmi fry,
dishes like akoori and eeda cheese balls take you back to the
egg-obsessed Parsi home, while others like the decidedly veggie, okra-rich bheeda ma dahi and tarkari pulao show you that there truly is enjoyment beyond meat. Non-alcoholic
beverages like the milky Parsi chai
and the unctuous Rustom’s hot chocolate, though anathema to the ‘mota peg’ loving Parsis, are
encore-worthy.
CAFÉ
IRANI CHAII, Mumbai
Grabbing
headlines a year ago for being the first new Irani restaurant to open in Mumbai
in 50 years, this modest little Irani café truly is a welcome addition to the
dying breed. Sitting along a tiny lane in central Mumbai’s Mahim area, Café
Irani Chaii is like a shiny, new portal into a moth-eaten era, with its glass countertop
bearing egg trays and large glass jars holding forth bull’s eye peppermint
candy and Parle-G biscuits. Its faux Bentwood chairs, glass covered tables and
mirror-paneled walls giving it more and more cred. With prices almost on par
with the few old Irani cafés still left standing, its mawa cakes and brun maskas
curry fond favour with the pocket moneyed school kids. Those wishing to take a
trip down memory lane can indulge in dishes like the Irani zereshk polow and mutton paya
soup, best washed down with a Pallonji brand ginger or masala soda, or better still, a piping hot (chipped) mug of
Bournvita!
DISHKIYAOON,
Mumbai
In a classic case of one copycat copying another, this year-old, BKC-located all
day diner cum bar shamelessly apes London’s Dishoom quartet–which
paradoxically, is itself a pastiche of many old Bombay Irani restaurants’
elements—right from its onomatopoeic name to its décor (read: faux telephone
box, exposed Edison bulbs etc) and fare on offer. Here, Chef Clyde Comello
takes on classic Bambaiyya-style favourites like a vada pav, transforming it into a deconstructed vada pav salad, while chakna—a
beer bar favourite is sent off as a delicately plated chana chur garam, replete with a very au courant flourish of micro
greens topping it. Cocktails here reinforce the nostalgic leitmotif with
specimens like the filter coffee martini, gur
& sugarcane mojito and the tart, tamarind-redolent Bombay to Benaras that
reminds one of the bunta sodas one
drank at Irani joints in the era when twitter was just another name for
birdsong!
SODABOTTLEOPENERWALA,
New Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thane, Mumbai
As
one of the earliest torch bearers of the Neo Bombay restaurant movement, SodaBottleOpenerWala
(SBOW), has over the years, metastasised into a virtual army of outposts that
have sprung up in several Indian cities, with the newest and most ironic of all
being readied to open its stained-glass doors in the Irani café stronghold of
South Mumbai’s Colaba neighbourhood. With a decidedly eclectic Mumbai-style
menu, owner and serial restaurateur A.D. Singh has made sure that SBOW’s Parsi signature
dishes like berry pulao, Parsi mutton
masala roast, prawn patio and chicken farcha rub shoulders with Bombay street food icons like kanda bhaji, Tardeo A/C Market Mamaji’s grilled
sandwich and a Bhendi Bazaar sheekh
paratha. The ‘Irani Chai Bar’ is another interesting concept, where
everything from the luridly-coloured raspberry soda in bottles to the
tequila-heavy Daruwalla Vimto comes heavily spiked with nostaligia. All this,
in SBOW restaurants that each pay rich tribute to the quirkiness of erstwhile
Irani eateries with their décor, the lynchpin of which is a take on the rather
comic Bastani & Co. rules’ board emblazoned with diktat’s like “No talking
to the cashier, no newspaper, no leg on chair, no combing” and such.
THE
BOMBAY CANTEEN, Mumbai
Prima facie, you’d be forgiven for dismissing The Bombay Canteen (TBC), nestled
in the concrete jungle of Mumbai’s erstwhile mill bastion of Lower Parel, as
another grunge-obsessed, exposed-brickwork-meets-industrial-chic space. A motif
that seems to be the cliché of every second restaurant that’s debuted in
‘Maximum City’ over the last few years. But take some time out to peel off its
patina-rich layers, look under its old Parsi-style terracotta floor tiles and peer through its
coloured glass-accented window panes and you’ll see a core
that’s deliciously refreshing and reassuringly familiar. And nostalgia is one
of the main reasons why New York-based ‘Old Bombay Boy’ Chef Floyd Cardoz
decided to set TBC up as a paean to his—and the city’s—past. Everything from a Kutchi dabeli bada pao sandwich and a
surprisingly piscine take on bhelpuri with
the seafood bhel to cocktails like the
gin raspberry sharbat and tamarind
whiskey shake feature on its kitschy menu that reads like an ad from a 70s
newspaper. So popular is this turn, that Cardoz has now exported the concept of
the Bombay restaurant to New York with his brand new Paowalla in downtown
Manhattan’s trendy SoHo, that’s garnering some solid press.
(A shorter, edited version of this article first appeared in the 27th February 2017 issue of India Today Magazine, India)
