The Bombay Canteen : Anatomy of a Restaurant

THE BOMBAY CANTEEN

ANATOMY OF A RESTAURANT

ON CONTINUITY

The board outside the Restaurant one day summed it up perfectly.

Mumbai is the city, Bombay is the emotion.

Old names channel old memories.

The restaurant in its entirety is a homage to nostalgia, an intelligent look back through the years to find out what our best memories are made of, what made us smile, what made us squint in pleasure.

These simple inquiries have physically sculpted the space, its menu, its service, its retail and its music. The Canteen suffix speaks of the casualness, the community orientation, the idea of sharing platters, and unpretentiousness of the offering.

The Canteen also brings back memories of time shared with friends, and the Bombay Canteen strives to be the new avatar of those spaces.

Sameer Seth, Co-Founder, The Bombay Canteen

The most formative parts of working on The Bombay Canteen were the long conversations with Sameer and Yash, and eventually with Floyd and Thomas about the entire mind-space of TBC.

Project briefs are best when they are co-developed. Design never exists in isolation, and needs total synergy with the overall offering.

The clarity in the food offering, the overall city-love we all feel and the leanings towards a Nostalgic nod to the “Best of Bombay” informed the design process profoundly.

The pre-occupation and dog-headed inquiries into the nature of “local” in all our thought processes became the reason to choose processes, materials, finishes, layouts and every single element that went into the Restaurant.

With the Bombay Canteen, we started thinking about the whispered memories of old Buildings.

“What stories would the Ghost of an old Bungalow whisper to us from the deep past?�

BUILDING THE CANTEEN

AN ODE TO BOMBAY

Simple insights informed design decisions. People love sitting near walls, so we thought it’d be nice to give everyone a wall to sit near.

We wanted to work with forgotten techniques and local materials, hence entered the stained glass panels and Malad stone. It seemed fun to think about populating a ruin with another ruin.

The guiding idea was to first build a Bungalow & imagine it populating the entire space.

Then rudely pluck it out and build what remained.

First intent sketch for The Bombay Canteen

The Bombay canteen draws its inspiration from the demolition of landmarks of immaculate beauty.

We’ve all seen beautiful old bungalows being torn down to make place for terribly mundane structures, and the pain is felt unanimously.

These structures tear massive holes in Nostalgia soaked fabrics.

The Bombay canteen references the built memories that these structures inevitably leave behind.

A half staircase going nowhere, holes in walls where beautiful wooden rafters once fitted snugly, the shadow of soot left behind by candles that once lit up shelves, the dusty outlines of old portraits, the bricked up voids of erstwhile windows.

The idea is to be able to piece the old bungalow together through clues left behind by its untimely demise.

The Bombay Canteen is an exercise in forensics.

Preliminary visualisation renderings

Preliminary visualisation renderings

Preliminary visualisation renderings

The Bombay canteen is a re-built scattered ruin of an old Bungalow.

The room by room meandering layout allows guests to walk into a sun-room, surrounded by windows that would have looked out at a lush green garden, the surrounding verandah area, with garden style seating along a compound wall, the large bar which would have been the old dining room, amongst bricked up old windows.

The Room-like meander.

The idea behind working on an “assumed ruin” allows us to create soul in otherwise soul-less surroundings.

It’s a sad commentary on the city’s myopic real estate scene, that soulful locations are systematically flattened to create large scale banality, without the magical opportunities afforded by adaptive re-use.

Local Malad-Stone walls as Bungalow remnants

The room-by-room idea also allowed us to experiment with hypothetical room settings, and to try to recreate the remnants of luxury, without having to commit to all the clichĂŠs that come packaged with it.

A chandelier could be wrapped up in its dustcover, a wallpaper could be ripped off, an expensive painting could be sensed through the aged outline it left on a wall by its ornate gilded frame.

The idea was to visualise the Ghost of the Old Bungalow, and design only its whispers.

Peace Haven, Bandra : The original inspiration for the layout

The Bombay Canteen Flooring Layout

Elevations and Glass panelling drawings

Elevations with Old Bungalow clues

Work in Progress

Work in Progress

Facade : Work in progress

The Bar at The Bombay Canteen was one of the most densely stocked, heavily packed up areas of the fit-out. We were quite certain it had to be old-school, and a bit improvised due to the nature of the concept.

We wanted it to feel like a massive bar had been squeezed into a slightly smaller volume, and feel a bit awkward, hence we designed lopsided shelves, as if a Bar had been improvised onto the old wall of the Bungalow.

The idea was also to mix up the Bar display with props, ready use artefacts, frames and functional additions, which was done phasewise after the fit-out by the bartenders themselves, so it tends to work better for the guys who’re actually using it.

The Bar at The Bombay Canteen

The Bombay canteen is all about City love.

We tried to support the fantastic food offering with a fitting spatial context.

The two are an inseparable and synergetic experience. We’ve strongly felt that the space creates a certain platform, this needs to be intimately designed keeping the guest mindspace in mind.

If the space creates a Nostalgic shell, it allows the Chef and the Kitchen to experiment wildly, since comfort is taken care of by the environment.

Conversely, in a lab-like environment, the same menu may jar or shock. Seated in a comfortable old home, these seem more palatable. We’d like to believe “The Bombay Canteen experience” exists as a cohesive whole, where its overall appeal is much greater than the sum of its parts.

WHAT MAKES IT TICK?

1 THE “WHY” QUESTION

Very often Restaurants get preoccupied by the How, What and When, and spend remarkably little time on the Why. A large reason for all the banality around, and possibly a reason for the almost 95% failure rate for Restaurants, is that the “Why� questions have not been addressed.

Why are we in the business? Why would the city choose us ? Why are we cooking the way we do?

The Why questions seek to outline ethics, larger ideas and important positions on the values behind Hospitality offerings. The other questions only aid implementation.

Honest answers to the Why questions aid a visceral understanding of the mandate of the Restaurant, and help partners align with the macro idea.

This clarity goes a long way in establishing longevity, and over time cements the Restaurant’s identity in the ever changing landscape of the city.

At the Bombay Canteen, the big “Why� questions had received well articulated answers.

To enable a design team to create a suitable environment for a food offering, the thinking in the Kitchen needs to be translated clearly to all other potential partners.

The spotlight on local ingredients and wholesome flavours, a very friendly staff attitude and pricing, the deep research and active outreach all helped understand tangentially the kind of atmosphere we hoped to create.

2 OWNERS OWN THE FLOOR

In our first few meetings it became clear that the entire team didn’t just own the Restaurant, they planned to live there.

From our perspective, this single fact liberated the design. Many times, since the owner is missing, or Restaurants are owned by large chains, the design cannot afford to leave any subtext. Everything has to be dumbed down or spelled out, leaving no room for nuance or subtlety.

Knowing that the ownership actually ‘felt’ ownership allowed us to create an intelligent fit-out, something that we were together confident that would be demystified for curious guests.

The elusive ‘vibe’, alluded to but never defined, emerges from here.

The simple fact that everyone cares.

We could afford to leave parts of the design unexplained, with curiosity inducing elements that reveal themselves on the 4th or 5th visit, primarily since the staff and owners care deeply about every element in the space, and would be able to reply to intelligent questions with fun answers.

3 AN EXPANDED MINDSPACE

Once the basic building blocks of the Bombay Canteen were laid down, the Restaurant then went about expanding their mind space to the furthest reaches.

From its inception the Bombay Canteen owned “Bombay�. They see themselves as a batonholder in a long series of iconic Bombay eateries, the lunch homes and Irani cafes, the canteens and messes that have served the hardworking city across the years.

Since the Bombay Canteen aims to continue a legacy and not profess to start a new one, there is no angst.

The need to over-complicate or seduce with liquid Nitrogen and Skull-shaped glasses never surfaces, because the end goal is not to create temporary novelty.

Understanding your own mind-space with all it’s nuances also allows intelligent extensions and alliances.

The Bombay Canteen singularly understands city-love and embraces all the deep subtext of the city. It reaches out to a wide cross section of the city because of its friendly prices, informal atmosphere, and one of the most deeply researched and inclusive cuisines in the city.

The generated mind space is then deeply connected to the everyday activities in the Kitchen, and nothing seems like a force-fit.

A Spotlight on the Talkies of Bombay Cocktail launch - Design : Please See

The Tiffin Box Packaging : Please See

The Menu Register and Collateral Design : Please See

Environmental graphics and stickering Design : Please See

The Bombay Talkies launch : Facade takeover

4 COLLABORATION.

Having your own distinct position in the city’s imagination comes with a host of benefits, and tends to attract a host of collaborators.

The Bombay Canteen promiscuously attracts collaborators and partners-in-crime, to add regular energy and variety to their days. Ranging from Bar and Kitchen takeovers with Restaurants from other countries, Theatre acts with young practitioners, food suppliers and others.

For a design intent to accommodate and provide for these fundamentally different uses, we need to remain present but invisible. Providing the basic context of the bungalow, but clearing out the floor became an important part of the flexible layout for the Bombay Canteen.

Designing an incomplete venue then becomes key, allowing the life of the Restaurant to fill in the gaps. Festivity, adaptation, modifications and changes are all chances to add Design detail.

The idea of involvement with the Restaurant beyond setting up the physical space opens a host of opportunities, and allow us to engage with design in the widest possible scope.

We then become part of the evolution of the Restaurant, working on upgrades and additions, pop-ups and outdoor events, ma jor face-lifts and brand extensions, becoming custodians of the built environment extensions of the Bombay Canteen.

5 BE COMMUNICATIVE

In the current Social media saturated landscape, it’s easy to misunderstand “Communication”. Being Communicative is an inherently mindful, creative and continuously changing way to engage with guests.

Strong communication allow brands to be “onbrand” without mistaken promotions, or graphical art, or even copywriting go out unchecked. The long format “internalising” of a brand’s voice, rather than creating a standardised flat response across channels stems from the atmosphere of the Restaurant.

The Bombay Canteen team understands that everything the guest experiences across senses is the sum-total of the brand.

Being ‘responsive’ may also mean rejecting flat, paid or sales-driven mass platforms like Zomato, which tend to operate at the other end of the intelligence pyramid.

While some brands tend to reply to each banal statement on Zomato-like platforms, The Bombay Canteen’s bold stance to stay away from the mess is commendable.

The constant and relentless “Responsiveness” is misunderstood as being “Communicative”, which involves little or no value created at the end. Communication exists intelligently across varied touch-points if one is vigilant.

The Canteen Classes : Outreach by Masterclasses and Guest speakers

Maska Khari and Chai : Outside the Restaurant

RESONANCE

“As much as the food enthralled us, and you can tell it has, what moved us was the idea that two young restaurateurs who spent much of their adult lives witnessing the emergence of Mumbai rather than Bombay, were pushed to think about their food intelligently and with as much love and affection as only the Bombayite can.

I personally mark their effort as the peaking of the Bombay food resistance: a return via food to the things that built this city.�

Gayatri Jayaraman, The Daily O

They bring Bombay back on several levels.

We are a confusing city: our modern progressive merges with colonial past, and our casual chic in ways that Delhiites choke on.

The team achieves this with the part Irani, part Parsi stained glass and wood interiors that stir memories of being able to walk into a neighbourhood corner tea store with a few Rupees to order bun maska and chai or an individually wrapped strawberry wafer in your shorts and chappals.

Almost like an art installation, the Malad-stone recreates an old Bombay look, which is mishmashed to a purpose: it’s hit so many chords by the time you’ve sat down, you want to hug the waiter and ask him to summon your now deceased uncle from the gymkhana.

Gayatri Jayaraman, The Daily O

But you can only feed off nostalgia up to a point. Eventually our collective hunger is for progress. And Mumbai, more than any city in India, is the vanguard.

Intelligently enough, what Zacharias, Seth, Bhanage and Cardoz achieve, is that simultaneous regression and progression that is uniquely Bombay.

They leave the moving backwards in time to the physicality of the space while taking the food forward.

Gayatri Jayaraman, The Daily O

“More than anything, that is the lingering sense that The Bombay Canteen leaves you with: That here are a bunch of people who are thinking about their food, their city, what they stand for and where they want to go.”

“That who we are and what we mean, that everyone who remembers it is holding on to for dear life. I still think my son said it best; "it's food that switches something on in you".

That, which it switches on, my son, that's Bombay.”

Gayatri Jayaraman, The Daily O

If you want to taste the emotion of a city, seriously give yourself up to this restaurant, and to the city’s seafood, to alleys of kebabs and brain fry, to vegetarian options in a heartbeat, to migrant menus, to humble dives, to evolving flavours, modern adaptations, and people’s home cooked meals.

You will be richer for every single experience and your tongue and heart will know mystery, and be delighted.” @anitakapoor

The No 1 Restaurant in India CNN Traveller Awards