Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Mumbai’s Melting Pot

How much of a city’s character is defined by its restaurants? Would it be wrong to say that restaurants command the same import as a city’s important cultural elements like its museums, theatres and art galleries?

The glory of Mumbai’s restaurants: Udupi joints serving endless dishes of hot steaming idlis, rawa dosas and medu vadas along with veg Manchurian, American chop suey and Hakka noodles to hungry office-goers; kebab establishments offering butter chicken, Hyderabadi daal and seekh kebabs to happy groups of gourmands; Chinese and Pan-Asian eateries dishing out golden fried prawns, tom yum soups, and Vietnamese noodles for ladies who lunch; pizzerias and sandwich shops listing penne in pink sauce and thin crust Margherita, along with Peri Peri paneer combos for the young and restless; Irani cafes with their brun maska, masala tea and berry Pulao to satiate the lonely traveller; Gujarati chaat houses serving street food like pani puri, made with mineral water; pure veg restaurants with their all-you-can-eat bottomless thalis...

At their most basic level, of course it’s the convenience restaurants offer that made them such a mainstay of modern life. (Illustration: Gajanan Nirphale)

How much of a city’s character is defined by its restaurants? Would it be wrong to say that restaurants command the same import as a city’s important cultural elements like its museums, theatres and art galleries?

After all, what would some of the world’s great cities be without their restaurants? Paris without its cafes, Rome without its trattorias, Tokyo without its Izakayas, Barcelona without its tapas bars or New York without its neighbourhood delis?

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At their most basic level, of course it’s the convenience restaurants offer that made them such a mainstay of modern life — having someone prepare one’s meal, serve it and wash up after is no mean service, in an age when time and energy are at a premium.

The nine-to-five lifestyle of white-collar workers and the fact that more women are working outside their homes, all make the convenience of eating out a very attractive proposition.

But that’s just one part of their popularity. Restaurants also provide a level playing field for the more impersonal interactions which are the staple of modern living, such as business meetings, job interviews, first dates and office discussions, where people are required to meet over a meal, to discuss the subject at hand, with little distractions.

For tourists, travellers and wanderers, restaurants are a way to experience first-hand a city’s culture; even without dining at a local home, a tourist can feel welcome and experience the rites and rituals of a new city, just by sitting among strangers and partaking of the food.

Restaurants are also the go-to places for celebrations — how else to mark a birthday, anniversary or hot date than at one’s favourite restaurant, where for a brief period one is transported away from the everyday and mundane, and is made to feel special and cherished?

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Of course, in today’s food-obsessed world where cuisine has come to represent much more than nutrition and sustenance, restaurants have come to be regarded almost as the temples of modern life, and their celebrated chefs as their high priests. Food and foodies have captured the public imagination in the past two decades as never before. TV shows based on food, food awards and contests and food-related content are an integral part of our lives today. What’s more, food has come to be seen as a community exercise; it’s not as important to have tasted a dish as to have shared it on social media.

A popular cartoon in the New Yorker captured the zeitgeist perfectly — a couple goes out to a fancy restaurant and orders their food. As they are about to finish their first course, the server interrupts them and asks, “Pardon me, is everything all right?” The couple is surprised and replies in the affirmative. The server responds, “But, you haven’t even photographed your food yet!”

More than the taste on your palate, food today has come to represent a person’s status, style and taste, much the same way as their choice of fashion or vocation does. Often, much of the restaurant-going experience is about being seen at the right place. Patronising a particular eatery sends out messages of who you are and what you aspire to.

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Considering their ubiquity, it is almost difficult to imagine that restaurants across the world are facing an existential crisis today.

Perhaps the worst-affected are restaurants in India. Though it employs and provides jobs to thousands, here, the restaurant sector appears to be the favourite punching bag for the powers that be. So, while governments around the world have stepped in to help their local restaurants through the lockdowns in the past year (even paying some of the wage bill in cities like London), Indian restaurant haven’t been afforded the same considerations.

Among the first to down their shutters at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown last year, Indian restaurants seem to be the last to open their doors to customers. Last week, in a move that appeared hopeful, their working hours were relaxed till 10pm. However, the city’s leading restaurateurs have been crying foul about the regulation that requires all members of staff to be fully vaccinated, and say the government has unrealistic expectations and is giving them step- motherly treatment (given the shortage of vaccines). When train services, malls and cinemas have been opened, they ask why their particular requirements haven’t been considered.

On its part, the government argues that it is for everyone’s safety and that restaurants by definition will have mask-less customers, and the probability of spread is heightened.

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It is too early to say how things will eventually pan out, but given the way things are going, it would not be wrong to speculate if the city’s restaurant scene will ever be the same again.

Many cherished establishments have already downed their shutters; the enterprising and agile among them have taken to other forms of business, such as food deliveries and innovative DIY offers. And though some restaurateurs have managed to put on a brave face, each will tell you in private that they are unable to meet their expenses and do not know how long they can survive, if things don’t improve soon.

So, will families line up every Sunday outside the city’s chaat establishments for some pani-puri and bhel? Will the kitty party ladies return to their Chinese hang outs? Will locals take their tourist friends to the city’s Malvani and seafood specialty restaurants to eat crab, bombil or prawn koliwada? Will the paparazzi be back waiting for Tiger Shroff outside his favourite Bandra eatery? Will international Michelin starred chefs jet in to conduct celebrated pop ups with their Indian counterparts? Will hordes of teenagers converge at the coffee shops of their favourite five-stars for some after dinner coffee and hi-jinks?

No one can say for sure, the proof of the pudding, after all, is in the eating…