While I may not have started learning Hindi yet, I am rapidly becoming fluent in another language; the visual language of Instagram. I mainly study cafes and restaurants, and the key message I am taking away from my studies is this: the slicker the page, the less a place will accommodate even the gentlest of rampaging toddlers. I can tell that the time they invest in beautifully curated instagram pages, does not want to be redirected towards floor cleaning.
And so it seems that at the same rate as I am collecting delivery services, I am also collecting a list of “Not for Babies” eat-and-drinkeries. I don’t know why it came as a surprise (the kind of surprise that sees you narrowly avoiding knocking elbows with a glossy, artisanal coffee drinker while trying to stop your baby from eating raw coffee beans out of the table display as he slithers onto the floor). In a city like Mumbai I know that space is at a premium, and popularity is a blessing and a curse from that perspective. But somehow I conveniently forgot about the existence of fisheye lenses and mirror trickery when I carefully favourite-ed all these trendy places on my map and earmarked them for ‘family excursions’. My google map is now littered with little pink hearts that mock me every time I open the app to go somewhere.
After spending 6 months in Jersey turning Jasper into a beach cafe and garden centre aficionado, I fear his membership to Babies that Brunch may soon be revoked if I don’t tune into a more family-friendly aesthetic. I can’t blame Jersey’s island-wide relaxed dining atmosphere entirely. The month we spent in Australia on our way here got me used to sprawling pubs with childrens’ play areas, as well as beach cafes that spill right out onto (far warmer) beaches. I suspect COVID has played a role in warping my sense of scale too, given that before my Jersey sojourn, I could count the number of times I have dined out in the past 2 years on one hand. (For those who are interested, those momentous occasions mostly took place in Yangon at Seeds, The Rangoon Teahouse, Joitamoi by Chef Orng, Le Planteur, and The Strand Cahore (Ballygarrett, Ireland). Spending 6 years living in Myanmar probably hasn’t helped either. Even before COVID, and certainly before the coup, Yangon’s restaurant scene was cosy. Every few months, having exhausted our trusty favourite dining options, we would head to Bangkok for a weekend to refresh our wardrobes and reinvigorate our taste buds. But that was years ago now, and before I had to consider our tiny human tornado. Both Mumbai and Bangkok feature heavily in ‘best restaurants in Asia’ lists, so it seems I will need to get out more if I am to make the most of living in such a foodie mecca. Sadly for Jasper, it seems the best of Mumbai’s culinary offerings will be closed to him for a number of years.
That said, among the places that don’t have high chairs or tables big enough to keep things out of reach of Jasper’s extraordinarily long arms, we have found a few gems. I suppose I have 3 lists really:
Not for Babies
The ones that look really special in photos. Most don’t offer delivery and require reservations months in advance.
Masque: coincidentally, next door to Dylan's office
Bastian: very close to our home
Subko: in the middle of the Bandra maze
Blue Tokai: Dylan's morning pre-work pick-me-up
Family Outings
The ones that look good enough to go into when you pass them in a mall. Most also offer delivery and don’t require reservations.
Saz at the Jio World Drive Mall
Bombay Canteen in the Kamala Mills Compound, close to our home
Smokehouse Deli in the Phoenix Mills Mall, also close to home
Lighthouse Cafe - yet to try, but it’s near Jasper’s summer camp school
Solo Findings
The ones I stumble on when I am out and about on my own and have time to drift. These are the ones where I feel like ordering a cocktail, but then remember it is only 3pm and I have a small child at home that still needs feeding, bathing and reading to. Coffee or lemonade for one!
Delhi Heights Cafe
Foo - not technically a solo discovery. Dylan and I had mid-afternoon cocktails here on a rare excursion together sans baby.
If anyone has any places to add to my lists, please do hand them over. We are here for a good few years and will need to eat and drink. In the meantime, I will continue to scour restaurant photo galleries for glimpses of high chairs, and enough room to swing a chaat (I jest. I know a chaat is a savoury snack, not a measuring feline. But infinitely more likely to be sent flying, in our case.) And will simultaneously work on Jasper’s table manners, of course.
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