The Mumbai Irani café is something of an institution. While the 20-30 odd restaurants today that carry on this legacy are dwindling, there were as many as 300-400 cafés in the '50s that opened their doors to every kind of person that the city threw upon them. Their stereotypical

dé

cor

language is characterised with high ceilings, ubiquitous red and white chequered tablecloths, bent-leg tables and straight-backed chairs standing tall on mock Minton floor tiles, large mirrors on the walls generally interspersed with photo frames of Irani ancestry, all enveloped with fragrances of chai and sweet cakes wafting from the kitchens. “The brief given to us was to have a fun Mumbai Irani café and bar,” says Clement DSylva, the architect for the project. “There are typical elements of the cafés of this genre here, like the nankatai jars and sweets at the cashiers counter, the glass fronted cabinets that display the lip-smacking mava cakes and Shrewsbury biscuits, the mirrored walls that have hand-painted art on them. On our mirrors we have Monty Python-esque Bava/Mumbai inspired graphics designed by Maia Katrak and her team at the Republic.”

Mumbai's modern counterpart to the Irani café is, of course, the Udupi restaurant. With the advent of the filter coffee and masala dosa to the Mumbai streets, the quick service at these restaurants began to attract a larger clientele and the casual, laid-back atmosphere of the Irani café began to lose its popularity. Most of the cafés eventually pulled down their shutters. The odd surviving Irani café now serves nostalgia as sweet as the chai.

Everybody's favourite quirky Parsi surname becomes the name for a restaurant that serves up Sali Boti and mutton Dhansak, Berry Pulav and Patra nu Machhi. The décor is driven by intention rather than necessity, with references to all the great restaurants that once adorned the city, and the subtle jokes that adorned their menu boards. A model train runs along the periphery of the ceiling while you are served hot cups of chai and chilled Raspberry soda. Don’t forget to pick up a pack of Phantom cigarettes on your way out.