India is a beautiful place to be in, especially right now. Many a time, while travelling the length and breadth of this country, visiting different cities and states, I am equally mesmerised as I would be travelling to foreign lands. We have richness of diversity and history and top that off with an endless pool of young talent who knows how to capture the past and project it into the future in the most contemporary manner. In short, India is a beautiful place to be in right now.
Being from the capital city, one is often misled to believe that we have it better. Not just that our roads are wider, but even our food tastier and drinks sweeter. And it is those last two which I find are repeatedly shattered when I travel to practically any other city nowadays, and with good reason.
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My last two jaunts have been to Bengaluru and Mumbai, and both cities regaled me with their level of F&B delivery. Bengaluru had a new bar at The Leela which is quite neatly hidden away in a portion of the hotel and requires one to jump through a few hoops—even walk through the hotel’s back area—before finding access. It’s an old school jazz-cum-cocktail bar and the quality of the music and the drinks (plus the food) were finer than anything I have recently tried in the capital.
Then it was Mumbai’s turn, and in the same evening I was witness to gastronomy excellence, twice over. First, I visited Native, a lovely pace which is a bar, restaurant, and exhibition space (or gathering place) housed in an erstwhile ice factory. The building has bene tastefully handled to preserve its original brusque beauty while making way for plush contemporary interiors that showcase some truly excellent food and drink. Their bar, if I recall right, is a Negroni bar so I just had to try the entire menu! Safe to say not one disappointed and I still remember each drink quite vividly.
And then it was Slink and Bardot, a small restaurant-cum-bar that is tidily tucked away in a sleepy alley that winds into a fishing village. Yes, of all the places in the world, this one pretty much hides in plain sight. The food and drinks here, too, were curated here to the point of amazement and we simply couldn’t stop at trying merely one of each. Such heady, soaked nights make for the best memories and it’s not just the food and drinks but the entire set—the ambience, the mood, the conversations that flow from it and about and around it. I had a troupe of Delhiites with me at most places I visited, and we all walked away feeling admirably embittered by just how much our local bars have to go to match these lovely joints. Sure, we may be winning more awards as best bars, but the real action is far from the noise, here, in hush-hush new bars and eateries houses in fishing villages, historic buildings or in the back area of prominent hotels.
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And I am yet to make my way to Pune, Kolkata, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Goa (to name a few) where, I already have a growing list of bars and restaurants to try out. In other words, India is growing from a country into a (sub)continent and very soon, travels within our borders would be more than enough to classify as a solid vacation. It was always the case with traditional cuisines and historical monuments but now even the contemporary scene is evolving to the point where each city and state have something unique and novel to offer. In case you’d like to send the name of a bar or restaurant my way, please feel free to do so. Till then, Happy ‘gastro-nom-nom-ing’.
The writer is a sommelier
