Where to eat this August… in Mumbai

Lately, restaurants seem less inclined to be everything to everyone. This August, look around and you’ll see they’re picking a lane and sticking to it. There’s a world-championship-winning Neapolitan pizzaiolo in a new office complex in Lower Parel; a Fort wine bar trying to make by-the-glass drinking an everyday habit; Japanese and Korean hotpots for the monsoon; and elaborate desi chai rituals in another office complex. One American spot is moving towards cooking that’s slightly more regional; and the tongue-tingling pull of mala is at a mainstream chain, no less.

Bandra, as it is wont to, refuses to sit still: a new Neapolitan pizzeria, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef’s bakery, and an obsessively engineered toast-and-coffee shop have all opened within a few streets of each other. Elsewhere, though, one new restaurant is plating Benarasi kachori next to pesto fusilli with a perfectly straight face and calling it comfort.

Here are the places that have our attention this month.

Openings and launches

Pique, Horniman Circle

Mumbai has embraced speciality coffee, craft beer and cocktails, but wine is still getting there. Now, new wine bar Pique’s founder Sasha Goenka has set out to make wine feel like a Tuesday habit. She’s a Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduate with WSET Level 3 certification and a passion for both fitness and wine. Pique’s list features around 12 wines by the glass and 24 by the bottle, refreshed monthly, alongside an exclusive partnership with Vallonne Vineyards that includes one of the few Indian orange wines currently available by the glass. The food, created with chef and cheesemaker Aditya Raghavan, asks for tables to be loaded with plates meant for sharing, from steak tartare with smoked oyster emulsion and chicken Caesar pizza to a French onion grilled cheese and a parmesan cheesecake with red wine reduction. Pique’s playlist swings from jazz to bossa nova, and its programming will soon include Y2K and old-school hip-hop nights. This two-level wine bar and kitchen is open all day from noon, and there’s even talk of a post-run drunch for Mumbai’s growing run-club crowd.

Vincenzo Capuano Pizzeria, Lower Parel

Mumbai’s pizza boom has brought plenty of Neapolitan pizzerias but few with credentials like these. Vincenzo Capuano is a third-generation pizzaiolo from Naples, winner of the 2022 World Championship of Contemporary Pizza, and his Mumbai restaurant is the brand’s first outpost in India. The signature Cloud Pizza is built on a 30-hour biga-fermented dough made with Super flour from Caputo’s Nuvola, one of Naples’s most respected flour mills. (Nuvola means ‘cloud’ in Italian.) ‘Super flour’ is one of the company’s professional flours, developed specifically for high-hydration, long-fermented doughs that produce that dramatic, puffy, honeycomb-like crust. The pie is served with gold scissors instead of a pizza wheel to protect its airy crust. Alongside classics like the margherita con bufala and Diavola alla Nonno Enzo are India-only creations like chicken tikka and paneer chimichurri pizzas, plus a Jain-friendly San Marzano sauce developed without root vegetables. Beyond pizza, there’s a full menu of antipasti, pastas such as carbonara, arrabbiata, and lamb ragù, and Italian desserts including tiramisu, crème brûlée, and Biscoff cheesecake, backed by a bar pouring Aperol spritzes, negronis, limoncello, draught beer, and a concise wine list. If you, like us, thought of Lodha Signet as just another office complex, it’s worth another look. The 110-seater pizzeria comes with an open kitchen, a full bar, and plenty of pizza theatre, with even plans for apero hours in the courtyard outside, but that puffy dough is the big reason to go. Covers for two start around ₹3,000.

Fold Bakehouse, Bandra West

‘Good bread takes time.’ That’s the premise behind Fold Bakehouse, an all-vegetarian bakery from Devashri Shah, who discovered baking in Australia, trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and returned to India to launch a home bakery in Vapi before bringing Fold to Mumbai. The focus is naturally fermented sourdough and laminated pastries, but Shah isn’t necessarily playing it safe. Think jalapeño popper sourdough, an everything (bagel) croissant served with cream cheese dip, and a za’atar labneh croissant alongside more traditional and classic bakes. For now, Fold operates as a cloud kitchen on Swiggy and Zomato while supplying cafes across the city, with a physical bakery and store in the works. We’ve sampled our way through a fair bit of the menu already, and it’s worth getting in before the inevitable queues begin.

Angry Toast, Bandra West

Angry Toast’s main pitch is a three-inch sandwich, engineered with eggless brioche, that “took 12 months to develop, so it’s optimised for crunch and structure”, built specifically to survive being eaten on the move. Don’t let the tiny grab-n-go carbs stop you from looking behind the counter, though. Inside 450 sq ft, Angry Toast has installed a micro-roastery anchored by a South Korean-built S7 Pro roaster run by Suhas Dwarkanath (a World Barista Championship contender and the first Indian to crack the global top 12). The coffee menu has some seriously fun city firsts, including a taro latte, a pandan latte, a Vietnamese eggnog coffee, and a Mont Blanc, which pairs espresso with orange juice and sweet cream. Compact three-inch sandwiches are served in pairs and range from Gully Toast and Tikka Please to chicken katsu and smashed lamb, closing on a honey butter toast dessert.

Amichi, Bandra West

And yet another Neapolitan pizzeria? Yes. But this one comes with a few fun things that got our attention. Amichi is a 16-seater hidden inside Mac Ronells Bungalow on Waterfield Road. It’s started by Mishal Varma and Italian pizzaiolo Angelo Cristiano Maria, who met while travelling. The name is deliberately misspelled; it comes from a blend of amici (Italian for ‘friends’) and aamchi (Marathi for ours). The dough is slow-fermented—the founders brought a chef from Italy to train the kitchen team in traditional techniques—and the menu sticks close to Naples with pizzas like the diavola, burrata con pesto, and Parma ham. Desserts come from an Italian pastry chef based in the city. ₹1,300 to ₹1,500 for two.

TAB, Lower Parel

Recently relaunched as The American Buzz, TAB wants to expand Mumbai’s idea of American food with a menu built around New York-style pizzas, a dedicated smoker for low-and-slow barbecue, and a robata grill. Chef Irfan Pabaney oversees everything from pastrami sandwiches and smoked BBQ wings to Alabama-style barbecue chicken, grilled lamb chops, and 48-hour fermented pizzas, while Shatbhi Basu’s cocktail list takes a road trip across the US with drinks like the Michigan Sour and Southwest Spritz. TAB is an ambitious reboot that skips American diner clichés in favour of a broader, more regional take on American cooking.

Janu by Blondie, Juhu

At Janu by Blondie, one table might share pani puri, ram ladoo, and palak patta chaat. Another group might enjoy benne dosas, dal pakwan, Benarasi kachori-sabzi, truffle mushroom kulchas, or bowls of pesto fusilli. Instead of focusing on a single style, the menu brings together comfort foods the team thinks Mumbai diners love. Dishes come from Delhi, Bengaluru, Benaras, Sindh, and Mumbai. There are also burgers, salads, sandwiches, and pasta. Some highlights include the chana dal vada-inspired benne dosa, Mumbai-style pav bhaji with toasted focaccia, paneer akuri toast, and black dal with khameeri roti.

Specials, events, limited menus

Woodside Inn’s Bazaar Binge Beer & Burger Festival, in Colaba, Bandra, Andheri

Nineteen years in, Woodside Inn’s Beer & Burger Festival remains one of Mumbai’s longest-running annual food events. This year’s edition, ‘Bazaar Binge’, takes inspiration from 14 of the most iconic food markets around the world. Its month-long menu has imagined what Mumbai’s Crawford Market, Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market, Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, London’s Borough Market and Bengaluru’s Malleshwaram Market might taste like if they were reinterpreted as burgers, sandwiches, and craft beer.

The headline collaboration is with chef Seefah Ketchaiyo, whose Chatuchak-inspired double smash larb moo burger layers pork mince patties, nam jim jaew mayo, and melted cheddar, served with tom yum fries. Our absolute favourite, Crawford Crunch, has a grilled lamb burger split into two, cut side set on a pool of an insanely delicious and silky nihari velouté. (We dipped our fries in the nihari and texted founder Pankil Shah, asking him to keep this one on the menu permanently.) Next, Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar inspires a beef burger with muhammara, labneh, and sumac onions, while Bengaluru’s Malleshwaram becomes a chana dal vada burger with badami mango-tamarind aioli and Guntur chilli birria. Sandwiches travel from Kuala Lumpur’s Jalan Alor to Barcelona’s La Boqueria and Colombo’s Pettah Market, with everything from tempeh and mushroom to seeni sambol finding its way between slices of bread.

The beer programme is just as inventive, pouring six festival brews inspired by markets from Tokyo to San Francisco. Expect a bright yuzu rice lager, a rich coffee cocoa porter, a saffron wheat beer, and (our faves) a California steam beer by Bombay Duck Brewing Co and a smoked corn lager by Bira. Other breweries also include Toit, 2 Down, and Igloo. The festival is on till August 16 (at least) and needs a minimum of two visits.

Donmai’s Feast of the Rain, Worli

Donmai has introduced another Japanese rainy-day favourite to give our usual ramen ritual a break: nabe, a communal hotpot that’s meant to be worked through slowly. This seasonal ‘Feast of the Rain’ menu features five regional versions of the Japanese dish, each serving two people with rice and traditional accompaniments. The idea is to gather around a simmering, steaming pot, keep adding ingredients, and let dinner be a relaxed, interactive meal.

Our pick is the Donmai Nabe, a deeply comforting spicy miso-goma broth loaded with lotus stem, mushrooms, tofu, and shirataki noodles. There’s also a kombu dashi nabe with handmade broccoli and water chestnut gyoza, while the Niigata Sake Nabe, flavoured with sake kasu (fragrant rice lees left over from sake brewing), is one of the more unusual Japanese dishes currently available in Mumbai. For something heartier, the Chanko Nabe, inspired by the communal hotpots traditionally eaten by Japan’s sumo wrestlers, comes packed with chicken meatballs, pork belly, salmon, and prawns in a creamy miso broth. Throw in a few izakaya-style snacks like crunchy, carb-loaded kare pan, soboro moyashi, and yaki onigiri to mix things up, and order extra broth or noodles if you’re still peckish.

New menu at Idoru, Khar West

We never need much of a reason to eat at Idoru. Chef Nooresha Kably’s food is always a big draw, making the climb above Izumi exciting, and not just for the drinks and the excellent vinyl sound system. This month, the menu has gotten an upgrade. There are some thrilling new bar plates, open sushi rolls, and three fresh cocktails, all keeping with Idoru’s theme of playful Japanese flavour spins. We’ve been loving their robata-grilled truffle edamame; we’ll never be able to have merely steamed beans again. There is also a squid ink tempura with chimichurri and red yuzu kosho mayo; a tuna tataki open sando that we want three of; a generously filled futomaki; and open rolls topped with everything from truffle and avocado to akami nakaochi. Among new drinks, try the clarified Wild Turkey and white chocolate Mil*maid, the lychee, raspberry and rose Ispahan highball, or The Green Room, a bright gin cocktail with basil, mint, cucumber, and cardamom.

Employees Only x The St. Regis Mumbai, Lower Parel

For one night only, one of Singapore’s top cocktail bars is coming to Mumbai. On August 8, Employees Only Singapore will take over Koishii at The St. Regis as part of Koishii’s Salud guest shift series. Bartender Darren Prasad will be serving up the bar’s signature cocktails along with the warm, attentive service that has earned Employees Only a spot on Asia’s 50 Best Bars list in previous editions. If you haven’t been to the original in Singapore, this is your chance to experience it without leaving Mumbai.

Mirai’s half-Japanese, half-Korean hotpot, Bandra West

Why pick between a Japanese or a Korean hotpot when you can enjoy both at once? Mirai’s monsoon special features a half-and-half hotpot so you can enjoy two contrasting broths and build your own bowl with a variety of vegetables, proteins, dumplings, noodles, and sauces. You can start with a vegetable, chicken, prawn, or seafood pot, then add ingredients like enoki and king oyster mushrooms, pork belly, fish cakes, kimchi, onsen eggs, Korean rice cakes, udon, ramen, or ramyun. With unlimited broth refills, your meal keeps evolving, making this an interactive, customisable meal for a rainy day. Half the fun is figuring out our own combinations of broths, sauces, and add-ons. With two menus already this monsoon, we suspect the coming year will see a lot more hotpot spots in the city. About time.

Cecconi’s weekday sundowners, Juhu

Cecconi’s at Soho House Mumbai has launched a weekday sundowner that makes a case for clocking off work early. Available Monday to Thursday from 4pm to 7pm, the ₹1,495++ offering includes unlimited servings of some of the restaurant’s popular dishes, from Sicilian pesto and spicy salami pizzette to spaghetti aglio e olio, rigatoni lamb Bolognese, and asparagus risotto with smoked burrata. It also includes the house’s signature picante cocktail. That’s pretty decent value for Soho House.

Tasting menu at Avatara, Santacruz West

Avatara has introduced ‘Sutras’, a new 15-course tasting menu that highlights the connections between India’s regional cuisines. Instead of seeing each food tradition as separate, the menu brings together ingredients, techniques, and stories that link all these across regions. Dishes include black rice idli made with Assamese black rice, artichoke kulcha inspired by jackfruit nihari, and a vegetarian Railway Curry with smoked eggplant bharta and an elaichi banana bun. For dessert, there’s a modern version of sheer khurma with rose-cardamom espuma. The new drinks menu features zero-alcohol pairings, nostalgic lemonades and spritzers, and cocktails inspired by the days of the week.

Mainland China’s ‘The Mala Edit’, multiple locations in Mumbai and across India

If three-decade-old Mainland China is now celebrating Sichuan’s addictive pairing of numbing peppercorns and fiery chillies, then mala has officially gone mainstream. ‘The Mala Edit’ is a limited-time menu featuring populist catchall dishes like dan dan chicken xiao long bao, mapo tofu, mala steamed fish, mala sticky rice, and even chocolate xiao long bao. Available across outlets until August 31, it’s priced at ₹1,100++ for two.

Comorin’s Chai Time, Lower Parel

Comorin has been inspired by India’s chai break for its afternoon service, served daily between 4 pm and 6 pm through the monsoon. Priced at ₹600, the set menu travels across the country’s tea-time traditions, bringing together flaky fan khari from Mumbai’s Irani cafes, Delhi’s ram ladoo, mirchi pakoda, black pepper and ajwain mathri, and buttery curry leaf shortbread before a sweet course of Meerut-style nankhatai, a cranberry-studded Osmania biscuit, and its already popular cheeni malai toast inspired by Kolkata’s old tea rooms. Pair these with a classic masala chai, ginger tea, lemongrass tea, or kaffir lime and rose tea.

Tossin Pizza’s new pizzas, multiple locations

Pineapple on pizza, meet your competition: cranberries on pizza. Tossin Pizza is betting you’ll be into this fruity topping. The shop’s two new gourmet pizzas pair buffalo sauce with the tart sweetness of cranberries, one topped with mushrooms, onions and jalapeños, the other with smoked chicken. Both arrive with a side of cheese garlic ranch for maximum Americana. Unexpected? Yes. Weird? You decide.

EL&N London, BKC

EL&N’s latest seasonal menu takes a quick detour through Seoul before ending up back at the Indian tea table. Alongside Korean chilli chicken and mushroom baos, and cheese and chicken corndogs, there are a handful of cosy seasonal drinks like Cloud Chai Lattes, including a Parle-G Chai Cloud topped with the cafe’s signature whipped foam, which seems tailor-made for Instagram.