Our eating out in Bombay was done mostly in places in the more traditional end of the culinary spectrum. Almost all the places we ate at prepare the foods of particular communities in ways that would be instantly recognizable to members of those communities who have never given much, if any, thought to food trends. There were two exceptions in this restaurant itinerary. I’ll post about the second next week. Here now is a very long report on two meals eaten at the first: The Bombay Canteen. We first ate there as a family and then a few weeks later I took the students whose birthdays fell in the Bombay portion of the program we’re on there for a celebratory meal. Both meals were good, on the whole, but one was far superior to the other. Herewith the details.
The Bombay Canteen opened in 2015 (I think). It was the brainchild of the late, great chef, Floyd Cardoz and a team including two of his proteges, Thomas Zacharias and Hussain Shahzad, both of whom had experience cooking mostly in high-end restaurants not in India but in New York. The Bombay Canteen’s approach will be familiar to people who’ve eaten at Cardoz’s more explicitly Indian restaurants in New York, such as Bombay Bread Bar, and also in London restaurants such as Gunpowder. That is to say, rather than focusing on the cuisines of any particular region, or on dishes from the standard North or South Indian restaurant repertoire, they reinterpret dishes from a range of Indian culinary traditions, passing them through a cheffy blender and plating them in ways squarely in line with contemporary restaurants in the West. The menu is likewise divided into small and larger plates (here called Chhotas and Badas) and presented to share. And, yes, there’s a bespoke cocktail menu to accompany the food.
Chef Cardoz’s shocking death at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic was obviously a major blow, as he was not only one of the founders of the restaurant but also a mentor to the younger chefs and partners. Then last year the original Executive Chef Thomas Zacharias stepped away to focus on The Locavore, an excellent food platform that explores and educates people about the breadth and depth of Indian regional foods. He was replaced by Hussain Shahzad, who had been running the kitchen at O Pedro until then. Apparently, the menu has been retooled under him.
I’d been very interested to eat at The Bombay Canteen on my first visit to the city after they opened. But on that December 2018 trip I rarely ventured south of Bandra after dark, and as none of my working friends could meet there for lunch I had to pass. I settled instead for a couple of meals at the group’s other restaurant, O Pedro, which is decidedly Goan in emphasis but otherwise shares the culinary ethos of The Bombay Canteen. I liked both meals so much that it was a given that I would visit The Bombay Canteen with the family on this trip. And so it came to pass. I liked the meal so much that I went back a few weeks later with some of my students. That meal was less successful though by no means anywhere close to bad.
In order to make the large collection of images more navigable, I’m dividing this post into three parts. The first part has pictures of the restaurant and the current menu. The second covers the first lunch; and the third goes over the second.
Restaurant and Menus
The restaurant is located in the premises of the erstwhile Kamala Mills in Parel. That a trendy restaurant, and lots of shiny office buildings whose employees doubtless dine there, should be located on the grounds of an old mill complex is a perfect allegory of contemporary Bombay. The mills that were once completely central to the economy and identity of the city have long been in decline and the areas that were once the stomping grounds of the working class are in the process of constant gentrification. Of course, in Bombay the old is never overwritten completely by the new and the layers of the city—of its pasts and presents—are always visible.
The size of the restaurant comes as a bit of a surprise as the entrance suggests a compact space. But it opens into a quite expansive space, a fair bit larger than O Pedro. The interior was apparently completely revamped last year. I obviously cannot tell you in what ways it has changed but it now features a large central dining room, and a few smaller sections off to the sides. There’s also a long bar with seating available there as well. The kitchen is nominally open—by which I mean you can see bits of it but not really very much of what is going on in it. At the first meal we were seated in the main dining room, at a four-top with tall chairs. At the second meal we were seated in what I think is called their gallery room, just past the entrance.
The first gallery below shows you the space and the menus. The cocktail menu is large though it doesn’t actually contain that many cocktails, as you will see. The food menu is divided into a long list of small plates (Chhotas), a shorter list of large plates (Badas) and a very compact list of desserts. To see what we ate at both meals scroll past the first gallery.
Lunch 1
Our first meal was eaten on Republic Day (January 26). The restaurant was consequently “dry” and I did not have the option of trying one of their signature cocktails. I have to confess I was not particularly disappointed as while the cocktails are presented with panache in the menu, none of them actually seemed interesting to me. Consequently our drinks at the first lunch were restricted to Cokes for the boys and water for the missus and me. I will register a complaint here though about the fact that a restaurant that champions unheralded Indian dishes does not do the same for soft drinks—at least offer Thums Up!
Okay, what did we eat? None of the Badas/large plates really caught our eye and so we ordered a bunch of the Chhotas. We got the Charred Gobi Hummus (served with oatmeal khakhra); the Chilled Sea Bass Sev Puri; the Podi B**f Tartare (served with dosa crisps); the Tandoori Octopus; the Chettinad Prawns “Ali-Yolio”; the Andhra Bheja Fry; the Syrian Bone Marrow Masala; and the Butter Garlic Crab Kulcha. We also got some paos, some Malabar parottas and some bhakri to mop things up with.
Of these there was only one dish that didn’t make very much of an impression and that was the Chettinad Prawns, which didn’t seem particularly Chettinad to me. The Syrian Bone Marrow Masala was tasty but then got a bit cloying—but would probably have impressed more if it were not the the last thing put on the table after we were already pretty full. All the rest were very good indeed and some things were excellent. Particular shout-outs to the cauliflower hummus and the b**f tartare (I assume it’s buffalo and that the vagueness of the ** is only to add some frisson to the proceedings); and also, shockingly, to the sea bass sev puri. Shockingly, because this is the kind of innovation I can be relied on to dislike (see my view of a similar dish at Baar Baar in New York); but this was dynamite. Also very good was the butter garlic crab kulcha—though it’s a dish to eat by itself and not with anything else. Oh, I should add that we were served a different version of the bheja fry as the original features cashew, which our boys are allergic to.
We split two desserts to end. One of them was only very good (the Coffee Rasgulla Sundae, nuts served on the side for us); the other may have been the absolute highlight of the meal: the Guava Tan-Tan-Tan. The name is a play on tarte tatin, I think, and the dish itself is a salute to fresh guava ice cream as is commonly available all over the city. In most places the ice cream is topped with chilli salt; here the (pink) guava was on the pastry and was accompanied by an audacious chilli ice cream. Just excellent.
Okay, take a look at the gallery below and scroll down to see why the next lunch fell short of this one.
Lunch 2
Alright, on to lunch #2. We were a group of five. This was not a dry day and so I got a beer: the Rice & Shine, brewed from local rice by the Bombay Duck Brewery and very nice. One of the students got the Coco Melon (a mocktail with Japanese melon, pineapple and coconut water).
To eat we got a combination of Chhotas and Badas. Things got off to a good start with the Roasted Hara Chana Salad (served with pao papad), with the green peas and pao papad doing a clever guacamole and chips impersonation. Also quite good was the Stir-Fried Morning Glory, topped with puffed Manipuri black rice and smoked potato puree. The only repeat from my first meal was the Chilled Sea Bass Sev Puri, which was excellent again. In the “fine but nothing special” category fell the Corn Locho, the Turnip Tikki Chaat and the Lamb Chop Barrah Kabab. There was nothing wrong with any of them but none were anything I’d be excited to eat again. Actively disappointing, however, were the Chicken Jhol Momos which featured momos with gummy wrappers and rubbery filling in an uninteresting broth, and the Yakhni Pulao which was just blah. Oh yes, we also got the Ghee Roast Chicken Seekh, which was also fine but you can get far superior seekh kababs all over the city in far less glamorous settings.
I looked to dessert to end things on a high note but they didn’t have the Guava Tan-Tan-Tan! This, I was told, was due to a shortage of pink guavas—which I found hard to believe given a local fruit-wallah was bringing them to our door daily. We consoled ourselves by getting one each of the remaining three desserts. The Coffee Rasgulla Sundae was again very good as was the Black Carrot Toffee pudding. The Strawberries & Cream (with hibiscus sorbet, lime nimish and almond nankhatai) didn’t do very much for me.
So, not a bad meal but a batting average that was quite a bit lower than at the first meal and with a couple of dishes that fell flat.
Take a look at the slideshow and scroll down for overall thoughts across the two meals and to see how much they cost.
So, a very good first meal and then a decent to middling second. After the first one I was ready to join with all the people who’ve proclaimed The Bombay Canteen one of the best restaurants in the country; but after the second I was less impressed. There seems to be some luck involved: order the right combination of dishes and you’ll have a great meal; but the wrong combination might leave you wondering what the fuss is all about. Indeed, I thought the whole “mod takes on traditional dishes” was done far more interestingly and successfully at the second higher-end/non-traditional restaurant we ate at—and that was a menu I was not even aware of till we were at the restaurant. But more on that next week.
Price? The first meal (two adults, two young boys) came to Rs. 8385, and the second (five adults) to Rs. 9835 (with a beer and a mocktail). So just about $100 for the first and just about $120 for the second. Not terribly expensive by Bombay standards but also not a cheap meal in the city. On the whole, quite fairly priced I’d say for what they’re doing. Oh yes, service was generally quite able even as they got slammed at lunch on both days, one a national holiday and the other a regular weekday.
So, all in all, while I will yearn for a few of those dishes, I’m not sure that I’m going to come back to The Bombay Canteen for sure on my next visit. I’ll probably go back to O Pedro, and for the more mod take on things I might try out some of the more expensive still tasting menu places that people go on about: Noon or Masque.
Okay, up next: another meal report from Seoul. That’ll be on Saturday. I hope to be back with another Bombay report after that on Sunday.