Nico Bombay.
SEE ALSO: The Best in Culture • The Best in Shopping • The Worst of 2013
BEST FINE DINING RESTAURANT
Le Cirque Signature
You could argue with prices like that, to deliver anything but excellence would be fatal. But there have been many a restaurant in Mumbai that has come and gone, with equally lofty price points and a menu that coasts on rehashing staid dishes. Le Cirque Signature, riding on its now-diminished pedigree from New York, has managed to burnish itself once more – here at The Leela, it serves exemplary French-Italian fare, cream- and butter-heavy to be sure, but without letting the protein, starch or veggie sink under its weight (try the Florentine t-bone steak or the almond-crusted Dover sole, and you’ll be happier for it). Pair that with discreet service, and careful attention to the process of a meal and all its accoutrements rather than just the meal, and you have a restaurant that upholds the tenets of fine dining without being fusty.
BEST CASUAL DINING RESTAURANT
Kombava
Thanks to its relatively inconspicuous location, Kombava, the all-day café housed within art gallery and events venue The Art Loft, is possibly Bandra’s best-kept secret. The quiet, eight-table venue reflects the artsy disposition of its French owners Laila Tayebaly and her husband Gregoire Berri, evident in such charming touches as fairy lights decked over bamboo, tall potted plants, and Aztec print chairs. The café deals in well-priced and prettily plated health food that thankfully doesn’t lean towards the drab and austere. There’s much to look forward to in their rainbow spectrum of homely soups, salads, quiches, and crumbles that recall the food of Reunion Island, Tayebaly’s home country.
BEST ASIAN RESTAURANT
Mekong at Palladium Hotel
It’s been a big year for the revival of Asian restaurants in both the fine and casual dining segments. The most impressive out of this proliferation is Mekong, the expensive but exquisite fine dining restaurant situated on the 37th floor of the Palladium Hotel in Lower Parel. At the stratospheric restaurant, you can soak in the pretty view of Mumbai speckled with bokeh dots, and brush up your geography, as Mekong serves the food of the countries (China, Thailand, and Vietnam) that fall along the course of the eponymous river. China is the best represented out of the three; the menu spans curries, dim sum and wok specials employing rare-to-find ingredients like shimeji mushrooms. The food at Mekong is the farthest thing from stodgy five-star fare thanks to the inventiveness of Malaysian immigrant chefs who have devised such playful preparations as the banana sago, a delightful pandan-flavoured pudding spocked with spongy sago pearls. Authenticity seekers will find it intact in such dishes as the Ma-La fish, a fiery staple of the spice-driven Sichuanese cuisine.
BEST STREET FOOD STALL
Jani Khaman and Locho House
No bigger than a shoe box, this gem of a snack stall in Borivali specialises in only two items, khaman (gram flour dhokla) and locho (khaman batter with water), which they have perfected. Their succinct menu lists more types of locho, creatively garnished with mayonnaise, grated cheese and coriander chutney; Schezwan sauce; and butter garlic spread. It’s a fresh, unusual and innovative snack that’s easy on the stomach and your pocket.
BEST POP-UP RESTAURANT
Thalassa at Olive Bar & Kitchen, Mahalaxmi
Although “pop-up” is right up there on our list of most detested terms of 2013 (on account of its ample misuse), we were glad to see Goa’s Greek taverna Thalassa do right by its meaning. During the year, The Tasting Room in Lower Parel, and The Table in Colaba were among a handful of restaurants that hosted visiting chefs (Jehangir Mehta and San Francisco’s Evan and Sarah Rich, respectively) for one-off dinners that were misleadingly marketed as pop-ups. Goa’s tourist magnet Thalassa however, literally popped up at the Mahalaxmi outpost of Olive Bar & Kitchen in September, thrilling its many Mumbai fans who make it a point to catch a panoramic sunset from the hilltop venue during vacations to the sunshine state. While Thalassa owner and chef Mariketty Grana could not import the glorious view to the racecourse, she successfully recreated Thalassa’s vibe at Olive using charming flourishes like white muslin drapes, and ceramic Greek plates across the restaurant. Grana’s biggest achievement was in bringing the delicious Greek repast of feta-lavished saganaki, gyros, and moussaka to their temporary address of a few months.
Nido.
BEST DECOR
Nido
The one positive outcome of the prolonged delay in the opening of Nido, Khar’s fine dining restaurant owned by Dish Hospitality, was that architect Ashiesh Shah got bonus time (which he used rather well) to put his finishing touches on the sprawling ground floor property. Shah has given free reign to his imagination as Nido feels like something of a wonder-invoking oasis inhabited by statues of woodland creatures like rabbits, furry pets like dogs and cats, and artfully stuffed exquisite birds. You can either dine in the forested garden of the restaurant where hollowed desktop computer screens serve as planters, or in the decidedly whimsical indoor dining room, which feels like an elaborate set out of a Tim Burton film. Tasteful orbs of light dangling from the ceiling cast a soft glow over the fantastical space that Shah possibly conceptualised in a dream.
BEST AMBIENCE
Nico Bombay
A restaurant’s ambience is equal parts derived from the decor, the people who frequent it, and something less tangible – an energy that seeps through, and infects everyone who walks through its door. At Nico Bombay, on weekend nights, Kala Ghoda’s new tenant, becomes one such place – diners don’t seem to mind the muddle of people squashed through table gaps, or sitting at the bar, eating a proper meal alongside barflies gazing at each other. The music, sometimes jazz, sometimes EDM, provides an appropriate soundtrack; as people rub elbows, and the smell of bread baking in the wood-fire oven wafts through, the crowd often spills outside onto the street, propelling the illusion of it all being just one happy party.
BEST COOKIES
Sweetish House Mafia and Ann-Marie’s
There’s been an unprecedented spurt in the number of cookie vendors in Mumbai, and we’re all the more happy for it. Sweetish House Mafia, a guerilla cookie delivery service, and Bandra-based home caterer Ann-Marie Fernandes have tied for the hardest to debate best cookie award. Since April, Sweetish House Mafia, which was set up by a home baker who fiercely guards her anonymity, has been peddling gigantic cookies and other sweet treats from a cutely branded Nano that’s parked in a new location week after week. Their baseball glove-sized Nutella and sea salt cookies are bound by generous dollops of butter, gooey splotches of Nutella, and chunks of dark chocolate. We’re just as mad for Fernandes’s palm-sized salted dark chocolate shortbread cookies, which are simultaneously sweet and savoury and easily devoured in one sitting.
BEST CULINARY INVENTION
Cooknie by Theobroma
2013 will ever be known as the year in which cronut mania gripped the world. The frenzy belatedly got hold of Mumbai-based bakers who got busy marketing their imitations of the croissant-doughnut hybrid around August. While we’re pleased we got a taste of the confection, our winning invention of the year has nothing to do with either a croissant or a doughnut, and everything to do with a cookie and brownie. The euphoria-inducing cooknie, which resulted from fusing the two, has a gooey chocolate brownie draped in a blonde cookie cloak. We have the Theobroma chain of pastry shops to thank for this delightfully chocolate-y and 100 per cent local innovation.
BEST HOME BAKER
Bombake
There’s been a ceaseless spawn of home cooks-turned-dessert-vendors this year, a trend that has been both a boon and bane. Out of sheer devotion to our job and our readers, we’ve consumed a lethal amount of sugar to find the one home baker who is worth having on speed dial and that is Nikita Sanyal of Bombake. Bandra-based Sanyal’s repertoire of desserts is much more modest than that of her peers, but in offering a small menu focused on the classics like bundt cakes, pies, and brownies, she has successfully distinguished her decadent dessert takeaway service. We have grown hopelessly addicted to her dark Callebaut-enriched chocolate brownies; super indulgent dulce de leche pie; and lime cracker pie, which strikes the perfect harmony between sweet and tart flavours.
BEST FOOD CONCEPT
Secret Supper Project
Since its inception last November, the Secret Supper Project has had one of the most coveted waiting lists in town. And for good reason – this anonymous assembly of friends know how to throw a hell of a dinner party. Good food? Check. Free-flowing booze? Check. A motley selection of companions and interesting venues? Check and check. That you can expect the unexpected – like an opera tenor breaking into a wistful aria – ensures that these dinners stay firmly wedded to their party affix.
Secret Supper Project.
BEST DEALS WEBSITE
Gourmetitup.com
What and where does the city want to eat is a question constantly weighing on Kunal Jain and his wife Deepa’s mind. In October 2012, the duo set up Gourmetitup.com, a utilitarian website that curates motley culinary experiences for Mumbai’s discerning eaters. They’ve tied up with an impressive list of stand-alone and hotel restaurants including Ellipsis, Hakkasan, Serafina, and Yauatcha to provide specially priced set menus that feature the establishments’ signature, popular, and in some cases, off-the-menu preparations. The website has spawned a host of similar food experience-based portals, and has become an indispensable service for not only newcomers to Mumbai, but also for seasoned restaurant hoppers on the lookout for something new and exclusive.
BEST ONLINE SPECIALITY STORE
Goosebumpspickles.com
Though they launched in May 2012, Goosebumpspickles.com gets a special nod for casting a spotlight on something so quintessentially Indian and integral to our day-to-day eating – pickles. The spiffy-looking web store deals in a delicious range of homemade pickles prepared by website founder Pinank Shah’s Gujarati mother-in-law Mita Mehta. The choice spans Mehta’s signature sweet and savoury pickles (like chunda and khatti keri) or rather ingeniously gives enterprising sorts the option of mixing up their own batch.
BEST BAR
The Local
To enter The Local, Mumbai’s first “secret bar”, you need to key in a password that’s emailed to a set of regulars every week. Going by the crowd on an average Saturday night, it’s clear that nothing in this city stays a secret for too long. But The Local is a success not because of but in spite of its exclusivity. Because once you’re inside, there’s none of that nonsense about a minimum spend or a poncy dress code (though, it should be said, you are less likely to get in if you’re a group of only guys). We kept going back for the easy vibe, affordable booze, excellent Goan food, and stellar cocktails made with such regional ingredients as kokum, kairi and masala soda. The final reason we chose The Local as our watering hole of the year – it nailed that rare but essential criteria for longevity: consistency.
BEST BAR NIGHT
Pali Bhavan Bar Nights
Partying on a Thursday night was a pretty incredulous concept until the Khar outpost of Olive Bar & Kitchen legitimised the idea. A slew of bars have since followed suit including Pali Bhavan, the fine dining Indian restaurant in Bandra, which hosts a weekly rager packed with models, actors and suburban and townie revellers. By 11pm on Thursday, the split-level restaurant clears out the dinner crush and the tables on the upper level to make room for a DJ console and a capacity crowd that has no qualms shelling out Rs450 for a pint of Tuborg and Rs500 and upwards for cocktails. Two bars, the escalating techno beats, and an extended deadline (the parties wind down after 2am) have contributed to making their Thursday soirees Bandra’s most thrilling night out.
Butter Bar Nights at Ellipsis
In June, Ellipsis, the fine dining restaurant in Colaba, enlisted the services of Butter Events to use their elegantly appointed property for Saturday night parties. On every alternate Saturday, the well-networked team behind Butter curates a starry guest list for these decidedly high society bashes that are populated with A-list celebrities, a bevy of models, and South Mumbai’s big spenders, who seem to love the combination of commercial music, pricey alcohol, and five-star hotel deadlines.