The last order: Patrons savour Poornima’s enduring memories

Poornima’s significance lay not in curated heritage charm but in repetition: marble-topped tables, stainless-steel tumblers of filter coffee, the aroma of sambar and hot ghee, and waiters who remembered regulars’ orders before they were spoken

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra FDA’s decision to suspend the FSSAI licence of Poornima restaurant, popular for its Udupi fare, in Mumbai’s Fort area has turned what might have been a routine regulatory action into something far more poignant: a moment of collective remembrance for one of South Mumbai’s most quietly enduring institutions.

Poornima Hotel closed after FDA raid (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

Located in Raja Bahadur Compound, opposite the Bombay House, global headquarters of the Tata Group, and a short walk from the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Bombay High Court, the modest eatery has, for more than six decades in living memory, been woven into the daily rhythms of lawyers, brokers, Tata executives, journalists, artists and theatre practitioners who have inhabited Fort’s unique commercial and cultural ecosystem.

Its significance lay not in curated heritage charm but in repetition: marble-topped tables, stainless-steel tumblers of filter coffee, the aroma of sambar and hot ghee, and waiters who remembered regulars’ orders before they were spoken.

For generations of stockbrokers trading day began at Poornima. Shah Mavji, a 92-year-old Worli resident who was a trader, recalls the idli-vada breakfast he ate there unfailingly for decades. “It was a really small and humble place, where we would run into competitors. Professional rivalry gave way to fraternity jokes and complaints about khadoos seniors at our respective firms,” said Mavji. His enduring memory however is of how Tamarind Lane would continue to carry “the lingering fragrance of fresh filter coffee and warm sambar” long after markets closed.

Journalists found in Poornima a newsroom without walls. Veteran journalist Abde Mannan Yusuf, who worked at ‘Blitz’ under Rusy Karanjia, remembers beginning the day with its piping hot coffee. “The thali cost as little as ₹10, and once our stories were filed we would go back to wolf down dosas,” he says, recalling how it was a favourite haunt for journalists shuttling between the sessions court and high court.

Artist Tushar Manohar Shetty recalls that the restaurant was equally popular with the Kala Ghoda art fraternity. “It offered something increasingly rare in Mumbai: democratic anonymity,” he says. “Brokers, barristers, theatre actors, painters and journalists could all occupy neighbouring tables without ceremony.”

Pratiek Aroskar, exhibition designer at CSMVS, worries he will miss Poornima’s green peas pulao and beetroot halwa. “Both the taste and the prices have kept me and my colleagues going back for more,” he says.

This is why the FDA order has resonated so deeply. While the official findings belong to the language of public health and compliance which must be addressed seriously, alongside exists another vocabulary – of memory, routine and belonging.