BackLounge Preview | Asilo, Palladium Hotel, Mumbai
Towering above the party folks at Aer can be a great thing if the fit-out is as lavish
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The new sky suite
The elevator ride to Palladium Hotel’s 38th floor, the top-most level of the opulent glass and marble structure formerly known as the Shangri-La Hotel, lasts almost a whole minute. It takes a haul up another flight of stairs to emerge at Asilo, the building’s L-shaped terrace lounge and bar, set to launch this Monday. No one said it’s easy getting to the top—but is it worth the trek?
There’s no doubt the rooftop venue is the highest publicly accessible vantage point in Mumbai, towering well above the party people at Aer on the 34th floor of the Four Seasons Hotel nearby. The clusters of new high-rises over the Arabian Sea look like work-in-progress Lego models. The Race Course is a tiny green speckle. The best spot in the house, with glass panes making up the walls on three sides, is reserved for private soirées on most nights. Even if you’re not a smoker (though you can smoke anywhere), we highly recommend spending a few extra minutes to soak in the view from the open-air toilet stalls.
Ever since the Hong Kong-based Shangri-La brand decided to withdraw from the Lower Parel property in August, just nine months after its launch, I’ve personally been wary of splurging at the F&B establishments at the Palladium Hotel. Especially since the company running it, Pallazzio Hotels & Leisure Ltd, part of the Phoenix Mills Group, has no experience of running a luxury hotel. But it turns out the hotel’s crown jewel has been leased out to JSM Corp., behind the countrywide Hard Rock Café, Shiro, California Pizza Kitchen and Trader Vic’s chains.
At the launch party earlier this week, JSM’s Sanjay Mahtani said the company wanted to keep the décor at Asilo, meaning sanctuary in Greek, minimal and comfortable. Perched on an elevated wooden deck, its white sofas with blue cushions and slate-top tables are too plain. The walls are plastered a rustic white, and the two bars are made up of distressed wood windowpanes. This kind of altitude probably deserves a more lavish fit-out. “Most terrace bars go very synthetic," said Mahtani. But the poolside-style furniture at Asilo had us longing for the slick, designer sofas and obscure (and mostly uncomfortable) bar stools at Aer. Truth be told, even Palladium Hotel’s own Asian bar Li Bai and the Vegas-style penthouse nightclub Exo just one level below are more dressed-up.
Even with five VIP cabanas, Mahtani said Asilo will comfortably accommodate 60 covers for dinner and around 150 people for pre-dinner and post-supper cocktails. A Japanese-style robatayaki grill and a josper (supposedly the only one in the city), a Spanish-born charcoal grill and oven hybrid that locks in the natural moisture and flavour of the food cooked in it, will service the mostly-grill food menu. At the party, we kept going back for seconds of the sweet, plump Black Bean Shrimp and Black Pepper-Crusted Fish straight off the griddle. The flatbreads in chipotle-spiced chicken and smoked veggie and pesto variations were perfectly crisp and went quite well with the herb-infused cocktails doing the rounds.
Most cocktails seem superlative under the open skies but the sweet-spicy Basil and Pepper Caipirinha was top-notch, made with good quality cachaça and black peppercorns. We were equally happy to guzzle the Watermelon and Jalapeno Margarita and a simple vodka-based Cucumber Mint Fizz.
After the party, it was difficult to imagine what kind of space Asilo would evolve into, but at the moment it’s more the generic bar-on-top-of-the-tallest-building anywhere in the world, leaving Aer to thrive in a sophisticated stratosphere.
Asilo, Palladium Hotel, 462, Lower Parel, Mumbai. Daily, 5pm-1.30am. Cocktails will be priced at around ₹ 600 and appetizers at around ₹ 550 (plus taxes). For reservations, call 022-61628031.
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