How community staples are inspiring Mumbai menus

“It’s written in the wind.” The saying holds significance to the Kolis. This ancient fishing community, endemic to Mumbai and its neighbouring coastal villages, calibrates the various characteristics of the sea breeze — its speed and direction to even its smell and salty taste — as harbingers. Crucial decisions are made based on it: when to head out into the Arabian sea in their colourful wooden boats; and when to return to shore, fishing nets laden with a bounty of lobsters, tiger prawns, squids, and, if lucky, iridescent silver pomfrets. The last one is the star of the Koli mejwani (feast).

With Kolis as their inspiration

You’ll find Kolis around Worli Fort. Historical conjecture has always shrouded the origins of this central Mumbai landmark overlooking Mahim Bay. It is often erroneously assumed to be a vestige of the island city’s Portuguese colonial past, but it was built around 1675 by the British. Today, the fort is flanked on either side by a sizeable hamlet made up mainly of fisherfolk.

Called Koliwada, it is also where one can find Slink & Bardot. The restobar sits cheek-by-jowl to every possible fishing accoutrement, from beached trawlers to yardages of nets. Inside, perfectly augmenting this seemingly incongruous, yet harmonious coexistence, is Koli Echoes, one of their signature cocktails. Made with sake, vodka and green botanicals, it is a refined riff on the Koli community’s penchant for a tipple of toddy.

Koli Echoes
| Photo Credit:
Assad Dadan

The cocktail shares bar top space with other neighbourhood-inspired libations such as Sunset at Slink, and Coast Guard’s Brew. The latter is a vodka-based, milk-washed coffee and ghee cocktail that’s named in honour of the nearby Coast Guard station and the bar team’s interactions with the hardworking men who are always drinking coffee to stay awake.

The cocktail menu serves as a corollary precursor to the restobar’s seven-course tasting menu. It features a seafood heavy procession of dishes, including a Barramundi Ceviche with Solkadhi. Executive chef AliAkbar Baldiwala shares that it is an ode to the Koli community’s fondness for the fish and the blushing pink solkadhi sauce with tart kokum.

Barramundi Ceviche with Solkadhi

“Nauvaris [nine yard saris], fish and colourful boats — we took inspiration from it all, but mostly from the Koli fish thali,” he adds. “There are courses inspired by traditional rawa-crusted fish fry, besides a curry [called an akha mhawra kalvan] where we use the whole fish, which is very intrinsic to Koli weddings.” The close proximity to Koliwada home kitchens helped the team infuse some authenticity into the dishes.

Chef AliAkbar Baldiwala

Breaking bread in Bandra

Just like Slink & Bardot, there’s a spurt in restaurants across Mumbai paying homage to everything from micro communities and local neighbourhoods to iconic street food. As one of Mumbai’s newest sandwich shops, Santa Maria in Ranwar is a tribute to the village (one of nine original Bandra villages). The menu also pays homage to local athletes and residents. For instance, the Markie’s Mortadella, a pesto-slathered focaccia bread sandwich with pistachio nut-studded pork mortadella, is named in honour of international para badminton player and local “Bandra boy’ Mark Dharmai.

Markie’s Mortadella

For more meat, there’s Ranwar Square, with a bounty of sliced salami, mortadella, pepperoni, and bacon — and a tribute to the many Christian family-run cold cut stores that dot the area. The meat is used as part of the stuffing for typically East Indian dishes such as whole roast suckling pig, a celebratory dish in local Catholic homes.

Another iconic food landmark here is Elco Pani Puri. Morphing over the years from a pavement-side kiosk to a multi level restaurant, this chaat shop now finds its famous samosa chaat and patti samosa a part of Taj Lands End hotel’s ‘The Bandra Trails’ high tea. Curated by chef Rohit Sangwan at Atrium, the afternoon tea service features a cornucopia of Bandra-centric street food, such as the flaky lamb mince-stuffed patties found at old Catholic bakeries such as Cafe Andora and J. Hearsch & Co. Sangwan says he visited a number of his “favourite eateries and bakeries in the locality to scope out ingredients and techniques”.

The Bandra Trail

Hat-tip to Baghdadi Jews

Bringing to the city plaited challah bread slathered in a butter flavoured with a Baghdadi Jewish-style saluna sauce is the Jazz & Sassoon pop-up menu at Smoke House Deli’s Colaba branch. Inspired by the bustling Jewish community-established Sassoon Docks, it features several homage dishes. “Each dish boasts the day’s catch, prepared to reflect Baghdadi and Jewish culinary traditions that have influenced Colaba’s historic palate,” says executive chef Rollin Lasrado.

Challah bread slathered in a butter flavoured with saluna sauce

He distilled this into his capsule menu by speaking with Jewish chefs both in and out of India, and sending his team to meet local Jewish people who still live in places like Kala Ghoda. “We were particularly intrigued by how they make the dough for traditional Jewish breads such as challah, which is only made for the Jewish New Year called Rosh Hashanah as it is a leavened bread. We adapted the recipe to make the loaf softer and more pliable to appeal to a larger diner base,” he says.

Chef Rollin Lasrado

The nearby Baghdadi restaurant, too, was a source of inspiration, especially for getting the saluna sauce right, he adds.

Dadar’s seafood market

Cirqa circles back to the Kolis. Housed in the repurposed Todi Mills — one of the many former working mills that once dotted Lower Parel — the menu features a number of seafood dishes. Each referencing, not just the Koli community, but also the nearby seafood market in Dadar. A warren of alleys that is transformed during the monsoon into a market selling dried fish.

B.F.F.

“At Cirqa, we love to play around with flavours and cooking styles drawn from the city’s various communities,” says owner Pankaj Gupta. “For B.F.F. [Bombay Fried Fish], we primarily use bombil, which can be found at the market.”

Pankaj Gupta

Interestingly, a non-seafood dish, Miya Bhai Bolognese is the perfect reflection of Mumbai’s syncretic spirit. Influenced by the Muslim community dominated neighbourhood of Bhendi Bazaar, this one sees spaghetti topped with a local touch of the unctuous mutton kheema sauce. The dish is served with nigella seed-speckled khamiri bread, which is a staple at scores of bakeries in and around the Bhendi Bazaar area.

Miya Bhai Bolognese

Imitation, they say, is the ultimate form of flattery and one that finds itself manifesting as inspiration for dishes and drinks that hope to recreate the magic of Mumbai’s past. One sip or bite at a time.

The Mumbai-based writer is passionate about food, travel and luxury, not necessarily in that order.