Bollywood Dhaba in Mumbai combines two fervent Indian passions - cinema and food. The restaurant décor is a mélange of film posters and bric-a-brac, enlivened by a kitschy paint job.
An entire wall here is taken over by cinema posters of classic films like Mother India and Lagaan. There is a bar, painted in bright, loud colours one normally associates with Hindi films. Old cameras lie about. The décor at Bollywood Café is unapologetically filmy!
The Bollywood Café is located at the heart of Colaba, Mumbai, which is home to some of the most eclectic eateries in the city. “The biggest challenge with regard to the shell was to deal with the height and the amount of space available,” reveals architect Prakash Mankar. “The space was so tight that the restaurant had to be built on two levels, one for the bar, and the other for the eatery. There was an existing mezzanine with a staircase, while another service staircase had to be added.”
The other problem was in utilising a single air-conditioning system for both levels. The restaurant has only one air-conditioning duct on the top level, with its branches facing the lower level.
The lower level incorporates the bar, the main kitchen and a show kitchen visible to diners, with a row of copper handis displaying the day’s menu. “In a dhaba, the food is cooked once a day, and then kept in handis for the diner to choose from. We have recreated the same idea here, except that the diner can see his food being cooked as well. He can choose what he wants from the handis laid out.”
The floor next to the staircase is lined with broken tiles and Kota paving stone, laid out randomly and sporting an old movie-making camera as an accessory. On the upper level, the eatery has sparse-looking furniture, wooden tables and chairs in random, assorted colours and styles, picked up from Chor Bazaar.
The wall at one end of the eatery sports film song lyrics. The roof showcases a Gujarati patchwork blanket, representative of the chappars that protect roadside dhabas from the hot sun. The bar has been painted to look like the back of a truck, including signage of the classic ‘Horn Ok Please’ adage.
The eatery has been divided into 2 parts - one open, and the other, a private space with a long table that can seat 8 people. The 2 sections have Rajasthani puppets, hung from a niche cut out in the wall, acting as dividers. The materials used across the restaurant are basic but striking – a lot of sleeper wood has been used in the flooring and as cladding for the beams, along with some interesting textiles.
To give it a local context, the plaster used on the façade has textures that resemble those found on old Malad stone. “This was just so that the restaurant looks like the other old buildings around, several of which are made using the Malad stone,” reveals Mankar. “We didn’t want it to stick out like a sore thumb.”
