Bombay's Top 10

Five-Star Tables

Behind gilded doors of the city's grand hotels lies an alluring landscape where culinary traditions are reimagined for the modern epicure. Get into your armchair and enjoy, or better still, book a table at the recommended fine-dining restaurants

Text: Mohan Krishnan

Way back, the 5-star hotels were the only places that offered fine-dining. From coffee shops to weekend buffets, from elevated Indian or Chinese cuisine to the blanket French/Italian/Conti food, the 5-stars offered a luxury atmosphere and good, sometimes great, food.

You went to celebrate birthdays, to party at the discos, to have pre-sunrise breakfasts, to do power lunches, and of course to attend society wedding receptions. The standalone restaurants, and I am recalling the old Bombay days, did offer good food, but you didn’t go there to put on a show.

Shobhaa De said it so well – "I’ll see you at the Lobby at 9" – could only mean the Taj Lobby. It was Bombay’s waiting room. The Rendezvous at the corner with the heart in pink neon. The Ballroom with those magnificent buffets and Christmas lunches. The Sea Lounge, with courting couples snagging the window seats, and the baghna groups, families gathered together so boy and girl could be sized up, over Café Viennois and sandwiches.

The Harbour Bar, where you had your “health permits” at the ready. As a 22-year- old ad executive, I had an official parchi stating my medical condition required me to consume alcohol. The Tanjore with Aditi Merchant doing Bharatnatyam for tourist groups at 6 pm. The pool side, the salon, and who can forget the stores – Joy Shoes, Guzder’s, and Burlington’s. The chocolate eclairs, baguettes and birthday cakes from La Patisserie.

It had a pharmacy, one of the best bookstores in Bombay, and an excellent florist. A whole city unto itself. You walked into the Taj, and there was the slight sense that you had left India behind.

After the 1970s came The Oberoi, The Leela, and the ITC Sea Rock. After the 1990s, with liberalisation came the global brands – Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, and their various sub brands.

With the new Millennium, the narrative changed. Standalone restaurants were crushing it. Great food, innovative fine-dining vibes, celebrity chefs, tables hard to get, trendy cool décor, young waitstaff, MTV music, high decibel levels – party time.

Slowly the trend began to shift. The 5-star restaurants were becoming passe, over-priced, not that great value, same old food and same old fogeys. There was some truth to this.

5-star hotels and their restaurants are corporatised, with levels of hierarchy and decision-making, centralised under executive chefs, systems and processes, often at the cost of innovation. Like death and taxes, the only sure thing was that prices went up.
Standalones are run by talented chefs, who can change things on a dime, because they call the shots. The investors are in it for returns, but many of them are patient capital. Pioneers like AD Singh, Rahul Akerkar, Riyaaz Amlani, Rohit Khattar and their like achieved success, earned good valuations, and created wealth.

I approached this round up of the 5-star restaurants with a healthy dose of skepticism. These restaurants don’t face the crushing burden of rents, and whimsical landlords. Yes, they have to turn a profit, but survival is not a constant issue. There is a captive audience of hotel guests, at least for breakfast, and room service. I have not seen too many 5-star restaurants make it to the awards lists, apart from Bukhara, Dum Pukht and recently Avartana. So, I had a “show me” attitude.

The good news is – most of them did “show me”. Many oldies have remained popular, and are still thriving. Longevity is no accident. The Golden Dragon must be 50 years old, plenty have crossed 20 years, and they are still drawing crowds.

I met a lot of young chefs with autonomy, and it shows in the new menus. Of course, the old favourites must remain – what is China House without the Peking Duck, Mezzo Mezzo without its pasta, Dum Pukht without its biryani that gives you a facial sauna, Wasabi without its black cod and miso.

Expats like Chef Jacopo at Mezzo Mezzo, Chef Kanya at Thai Pavilion, Chef Takahiro at Wasabi, Chef Zhang and Chef Li of China House, Chef “Jeff” from Fenix, are committed to being true to cuisine, even as they tweak the recipes. They have been in India for a while, and are happy to be here.

5-star hotels have the strength of corporate funding, and the solid revenue stream from the rooms. They offer a glittering experience right from the moment you enter the drive way. Each restaurant we visited had space to spare, outside and inside. No dodgy entrances, it’s “show time” before you enter the theater. Even if the décor had not changed, there were no signs of wear, none of the passage of time. The crockery, the silverware, the table linen came together to provide a bespoke experience. Even the bathrooms were outposts of luxury.

I did encounter outstanding value in many menus. The Tasting Menu at Mezzo Mezzo is Rs. 4500 for the non-veg, taxes extra. Given the quality of the six courses, this is excellent value. So too is Dakshin, where the thalis range from Rs. 2000 to Rs.3400, for a sumptuous (and if you like the cuisine), a delicious experience. Thai Pavilion with its sizable portions, is a meal to be shared, and so the cost per head ends up being reasonable. Ditto for China House.

There’s GST. Independent restaurants charge 5% and most add a 10% service charge. 5-stars charge 18% and don’t add a service charge. So, it evens out.

There’s another prism through which value can be perceived. Wasabi’s non-veg Tasting Menu at Rs. 11,500, offers a world-class culinary experience, at less than half the price of Nobu or Morimoto overseas. Why buy an air ticket, when an Uber ride will do?
It’s only a matter of time before the tasting menus at Papa’s or Masque (Bombay’s top independent tasting menu restaurants) will cross the Rs. 10,000 mark. Value is all relative, and we now measure the quality of our experience against global standards and prices.

Alcohol does not have to break your bank, if you steer clear of the spirits and cocktails, and focus on excellent boutique wine brands like Vallone or Krsma. If you’re an oligarch, the wine lists have high five-figure offerings, so go for it.

5-star hotels have two more strengths. First their excellent training programmes – Oberoi’s OCLD, the Taj Ops Program, and the ITC HMI. The results show in the quality of staff who emerge. They can also afford state-of-the-art equipment, in all areas of the hotel, including F&B.

5-star hotels exude a far more relaxed vibe today. No one’s hoity-toity, there is a friendly warmth, the luxury feels very homely. The décor is smart and modern. The fun has come back to fine-dining – okay, it’s not a Chef Gaggan or Chef Hussain show – but no one’s minding their Ps and Qs.

I also noticed an absence of up-selling, which has become the hallmark of some standalone restaurants, from pushing Perrier to five-figure bottles of wine.

I have a small wish list for Bombay – 5-star or standalone.

A great revolving restaurant. We used to love the Ambassador, and the Sea Rock. Bombay’s skyline is more dramatic today. A clear view over the harbour with the ships and rigs, the Atal Setu’s necklace of lights, as the spaceship slowly turns for a pano shot of our own city that never sleeps. Wah!

Live music. I’m not talking Maurice Concessio, or Goody Seervai. Jazz, Vinyl, Dance – let’s not get jaded bands from the SE Asian circuit. There’s an ocean of Indian talent. Let the standalones do their bar nights. This is a dance party, not a cheap booze fest.
A fine-dining place with the best French cuisine. Warm, friendly, stunningly modern. Young, spiffy waitstaff, the best Kashmiri morels, beautifully cooked buff Wellington, fish baked in salt, soufflés that wobble ever so gently, Crêpes Suzette flambéed table side. Cocktail drama like the “snake coffee” of yore, and Irish coffee. She’s bound to say 'yes'. Or he. Depends on who’s proposing.

The Taj and The Oberoi will soon have fine-dining Italian restaurants. Can’t wait.

The same Gen Z who kill (or threaten suicide) to get a table at Papa’s will get dressed to their nines, and come out for a special night. I see this in Paris, New York, Madrid, Firenze. Why not Bombay? Everything old is new again.

The 5-star hotel ecosystem has a challenge. They can’t raise room rates at will. They do keep raising restaurant prices, but their value offering has not kept pace. Thank you, Mr Puneet Chatwal, supremo of the Taj Group, for saying so.

There’s opportunity here – for the 5-stars to regain their food narrative. To reclaim the young people who have money, want to eat well, go out and party, and live the good life. They’re your future. But first you’ve got to show them, that this ain’t their grandma’s 5-star any more. Over to you.

Click below to read more about each of them.