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All Welcome
All Welcome
BOMBAY, 1948.
It is a close and heavy monsoon night on Marine Lines. Despite the weather, there is a jostling of people outside the Bombay Roxy. Well-turned-out gentlemen and flirty-eyed women clad in Banarasi silk saris all crane to catch a glimpse of Bombay’s finest musicians. The heavy doors to the club swing open and closed. Hot jazz spills out into the street. The club didn’t always have this pull or indeed its current reputation. It is housed within a former cinema. The previous owner’s savings had been frittered away on the floors of marble, panelling of Burmese teak and four large chandeliers. It had been a beautiful but bankrupting experiment in Art Deco extravagance.
Dishoom is mostly a walk-in café. All are welcome, any time, no reservations needed. However, if you'd like to make a reservation, we hold a handful of tables back for groups of all sizes every day until 5.45pm. After 6pm, a small number of tables are available to be reserved by parties of six or more, at specific times.
BOMBAY, 1948.
It is a close and heavy monsoon night on Marine Lines. Despite the weather, there is a jostling of people outside the Bombay Roxy. Well-turned-out gentlemen and flirty-eyed women clad in Banarasi silk saris all crane to catch a glimpse of Bombay’s finest musicians. The heavy doors to the club swing open and closed. Hot jazz spills out into the street.
The club didn’t always have this pull or indeed its current reputation. It is housed within a former cinema. The previous owner’s savings had been frittered away on the floors of marble, panelling of Burmese teak and four large chandeliers. It had been a beautiful but bankrupting experiment in Art Deco extravagance.
Under new management, it is café by day and club by night. The fortunes of the Bombay Roxy have been turned around, and now it shines brightly where darkness once stood. Bombay society comes here, to see and be seen. Local hustlers try to get the better of American card-sharks. Wealthy men of industry eye up coquettish women in cholis that expose more of their midriffs than strictly considered decent. A moustachioed Maharaja with an accent polished at Harrow or Eton exchanges pleasantries with several glamorous ladies who have perfected the art of looking beautifully bored.
The building has become a hot-tempered, noisy beast in the city’s belly, roaring through the night until the sun rises.
The man behind this reinvention is the charismatic Cyrus Irani. His name was once synonymous with Bombay’s racketeers, with murky allegiances, and with police escorts to Arthur Road Jail. Now no longer a jailbird, Cyrus fully intends to put the Bombay underworld behind him. And his new venture, the Bombay Roxy, might just be his redemption.
[Enter CYRUS IRANI.]
BEGIN YOUR DAY AT DISHOOM with breakfast, which might be a Bacon Naan Roll, a Kejriwal or a Big Bombay. Then lunch lightly on Roomali Rolls and Salad Plates, or linger with a feast. Refresh your afternoon with a drop of Chai and a small plate or two. Dine early or dine late. Or just join us for a tipple – perhaps an India Gimlet, a Permit Room Old-fashioned, or our very good Dishoom IPA?
Enter the decadent world of the Bombay Roxy, where the jazz is ‘hot’ and the atmosphere is heady…
Night at the Bombay Roxy was a rich, immersive, Indian noir born from our temporary union with Swamp Studios. Inspired by the glamorous Art Deco world of 1940s Bombay and its lively jazz scene (as recounted in our dear friend Naresh Fernandes' book Taj Mahal Foxtrot) Night at the Bombay Roxy played out in Dishoom Kensington from 27th - 14th December 2017.
With live jazz, drinks and dinner, guests were transported to the opening night of the Bombay Roxy, a café and jazz club housed within a former Art Deco cinema in Bombay, 1949, owned by the charismatic but wayward Cyrus Irani…
