Subscribe
Subscribe
- Motoring
- Style
- Home & Design
- Travel
- Food & Drink
- Specials
- News & Tech
- Videos
From the outset, it’s clear that Late Checkout Bandra is a personal project for Pawan Shahri. The co-founder of Chrome Hospitality, along with wife and chief architect Nikita Harisinghani, is awed by the fact he managed to house the second outpost of Late Checkout at the iconic location where Olive Group’s Monkey Bar and Fatty Bao once stood.
Shahri, who lives in the building next door, has grown up seeing the two iconic restaurants come up over the past 12 years. When the space came on the market early this year, Shahri wasted no time in snagging it up. Today, the space is a large 180-seater that channels the charm of Late Checkout’s Lower Parel outpost with a flair of Bandra added to it.
Carefully built over the past six months, there is no mistaking the space the minute you enter Late Checkout Bandra. A self-check in counter next to the travel concierge desk greets you near the entrance where you are welcome to spend some time before entering the restaurant. Imagine you’re waiting for someone or simply gathering your thoughts before date night at the counter. There’s a welcome cocktail to calm your nerves, a matchbox with all the cocktail names on each stick within and even mints to help you make a strong first impression. For the ladies, there’s also an entire bar with all essentials you might need inside the washroom that’s sure to become a selfie point before long. The space is designed by Nikita Shahri, Pawan’s partner in business and life, and a certified Bandra girl.
As soon as you enter the massive 6000 sq ft property, you’ll immediately be drawn to the glasshouse that’s reminiscent of their Lower Parel outpost on one side of the massive bar. The island bar itself is the piece de resistance in the entire space with cosy seating all around. It’s impossible to miss the bar, covered in suede and wood, no matter where you’re seated. Which leads to the next logical question — does Bandra really need another bar?
Turns out it actually does. The cocktail menu here carries over the greatest hits from Lower Parel and also introduces newer additions along with a new bar manager in the form of Tanishq Hinduja. The young bartender was leading the bar programme at Avinash Martins’ Janot in Goa earlier and brought out the LC Mixed Tape, a new drink on the menu featuring Goan whisky Paul John Nirvana with spiced coffee liqueur and gondhoraj lebu soda topped with a gondhoraj mousse.
The cocktail is a departure from the luxurious offerings of drinks that carry over from Lower Parel viz., Okinawa sugar and mushrooms bitters washed with truffle oil in Missing Trust Fund, or the hibiscus and vanilla gomme and 16-hour cold brew found in Nutty By Nature to name a couple.
A solid start for those discovering the Bandra outpost, the other new cocktails are a Gully Mango Picante and a take on the PBJ (peanut butter-infused whisky, berries and fino sherry) with a few more drinks on the way.
The Bandra outlet is also an all-day diner with a solid coffee programme at the helm. The slow bar will offer only manual brewing options from a range of selected beans, right from Karnataka’s coffee belt in Coorg to Colombia, South America.
The food also leans into bar territory, seemingly drawn by the large island bar around which it is anchored. It is also a starkly more confident menu from chef Chirag Makwana. Consider this: there’s an entire section dedicated just to fries and in true Late Checkout fashion, the options include dressings such as fresh black truffle and cream, steak fries, champagne and caviar and even a dirty martini made with olive tapenade, sliced olives and a house-made vermouth sauce — all of which is served in a tea tray to pick from as you enjoy your cocktail.
Another interesting addition to the food menu is a section on pizzettes, mini pizzas made with 48-hour fermented sourdough that’ll accompany your cocktail than overpower it. The Three Cheese E Peppe, with home-made onion jam, black pepper and three cheese sauce is a definite recommendation with its subtle flavours and lingering sweet finish.
The Bandra outpost also features a few more non-vegetarian options compared to the one at Lower Parel, keeping the demographic in mind. There are also subtle substitutions. For example, the Duck Puffs at Lower Parel that were replaced with Chicken Puffs also find a place on the menu at Bandra. The LC Tiramisu has coffee caviar in Bandra compared to the strawberry caviar in Lower Parel. Both are recommended at Bandra — the chicken puff comes with a katsu sauce at the base that is downright addictive while the tiramisu is closer to a traditional one now.
The absolute best new dish on the menu has to be the Duck Agnolotti that features confit duck leg stuffed pasta along with a sour cherry gastrique, 48-hour jus and shaved parmesan on top. It is a dish of technique and precision that was executed just right.
Other new must-try dishes include the Burnt Garlic Dimsum, Black Chickpea Hummus, Char Siu Pork Belly and the Soft Shell Crab that features chef’s secret nostalgia sauce.
Late Checkout Bandra shares its genetic code from its first Lower Parel outlet, especially with the overall look and feel, including the food and beverage options. But a new destination also offers a refreshing new take on what Late Checkout might mean for Bandra.
It is already among the largest bars in the locality and its chic interiors are sure to draw in audiences across age groups looking to celebrate special moments. With big shoes to fill, the owners’ personal stories around the iconic spot only adds to the allure of Late Checkout Bandra. The new options on the menu also reinforce the belief that this is a far more assured and confident opening in a suburb notorious for new openings all the time.