There is a string of restaurants on 16th road in Bandra, Mumbai. On one end of the street, there is the famed dosa spot Benne marked by serpentine queues, and on the other is the dining institution Mini Punjab known for its rolls. The area is overcrowded with food options, but it didn’t have a good bar—the kind where one could get a decent Picante. About two years ago, Sixteen33 opened to fill this void. A few kilometres away, on the tree-lined 24th road, is Idoru that started in December 2025, and has gained a loyal following for its music and High Balls. On the outskirts of Bandra, in the reclamation area, Punchline launched last month. It plays Shah Rukh Khan’s hits on repeat while bartenders groove to them adding to the high-energy vibe.
These new openings represent the evolving drinks landscape in the city—the gradual rise of independent, craft cocktail bars. Mumbai was not deprived of craft tipples, the best ones continue to be served in restaurants such as The Bombay Canteen, Masque and Americano which opened in the last decade or so.
Vikram Achanta, the co-founder of the homegrown award platform 30 Best Bars, believes the city has one of the most democratic drinking cultures with high-end options as well as dive bars, like Gokul, Janta and Toto’s. But it lacked a bar scene like Delhi, Bengaluru or Goa. In other words, Mumbai didn’t have a Sidecar, Soka or Boilermaker. These are bartender-driven bars centered on cocktails and a wholesome experience. The city’s exorbitant rents were a discouraging factor too, but the new bars have adapted to it by optimising small spaces.
Bartender-run bars have defined the growth of modern cocktail culture in India. The credit goes to Yangdup Lama in Delhi as well as Pankaj Balachandran and Arijit Bose in Goa. Bose also runs Bar Spirit Forward in Bengaluru.
Pankaj Balachandran, co-founder of Boilermaker, who has created several drinks menus for Mumbai restaurants notes, “Mumbai (today) is where Delhi’s bar scene was in 2012. It’s playing the catch-up game now.”
Shweta Kaushik, a strategist for hospitality brands, loves a good drink. She has noticed this change too. “These new places are not just destinations for drinks, but they are treated as destinations for ideas.” She shares the example of the newest launch, Adam & Eve, arguably the city’s first basement bar, with the bar unit in the centre of the room for a more interactive experience. She says the city’s after-hours crowd is veering towards interesting experiences.
Anil Kably, co-founder of the cosy, 30-cover Idoru, played an instrumental role in the aughts when he set up the bar and lounge Zenzi in Mumbai, which shut in 2011. It was ahead of its time as it championed alternative music as well as hosted poetry readings paired with jazz. Some of that essence has spilled into Idoru, which organises book launches during the day and has listening Sundays with vinyls. Kably has an innate sense of the elements that bring people together. He started Idoru, he says, “to fulfil a kind of hankering for a space that played good music, served nice drinks and had that vibe…a bar that in some ways feels adult. I think there was a bit of a vacuum.” It has been translated into acoustics that doesn’t drill into the ear and their crisp High Balls calls for seconds. Other bars, including Black Lacquer and Baroke, also position themselves as listening bars.
Compact with minimal seating is a defining factor because of the rents. Bombay Daak seats 30, Adam & Eve 25 and Koliwada Cocktail Club, which opened earlier this month, has 25 covers. The newest entrant is a bar within the restobar Slink & Bardot that has tasting menus of savoury cocktails.
Every bar doesn’t need to fit into the same format and there are a handful of outliers like Bar Paradox and 8ish. Bar Paradox is a maximalist space with 80 covers. It has hand-embroidered zardozi on raw silk covering the walls and Peter d’Ascoli’s print-on-print fabric in a private dining area designed like a tent. 8ish is a 75-cover bar in Nariman Point, and is perhaps one of the two bartender-led bars in the city with bartender Jishnu AJ as its creative director. The other is Punchline, co-owned by Delhi-based bartender Jeet Rana.
Usually, in Mumbai, acclaimed bartenders are onboarded as consultants. In that sense, AJ of 8ish belongs to a rare breed that has managed to establish a bartender-led space in one of India’s most expensive cities. Previously, AJ had shaped the cocktail menus at Ekaa and Koko. After Ekaa, he sought out investors to fund a bar. Restaurateur Rachel Goenka invested in his idea and the result is 8ish that launched in November. “This city doesn’t lack talent. But, it needs investors to back a bartender’s vision,” he says.
Achanta says that the crop of new bars in Mumbai reflects what’s happening in the rest of India—a maturation of cocktail culture. It means better drinks for all, and one could raise a Martini to that.