At Nariman Point’s 8ish, wild ingredients upgrade post-work drinks

Nariman Point has always had a clear daytime identity—office towers spilling people in and out, lunch runs moving on muscle memory, the particular energy of a business district. The evening has been less defined, the night even more so. For drinks after work, the options nearby are scattered: Woodside Inn, Colaba Social, Mezcalita or Americano, if you get a booking, are all within reach. But the neighbourhood was still searching for a place of its own.

8ish slots into that gap, settling into the evening pause that this area never really figured out. It occupies the spot Sassy Spoon once called home, giving the same corner of Nariman Point a more deliberate evening tempo.

Walk into 8ish and the room plays a neat trick on you. Commanding the wall, a lenticular artwork shifts as you move. First you catch Salvador Dali, that upturned moustache unmistakable, theatrical even in two dimensions. Step to the side and he dissolves into John Lennon’s softer gaze, those wire-rimmed glasses coming into focus. It’s a small moment, but in that playful flicker the room tells you what kind of evening you’re in for. This is a cocktail bar built on quiet shifts rather than loud declarations, the kind of place where mood changes are subtle, deliberate, and entirely intentional.

For Rachel Goenka, the restaurateur behind Sassy Spoon and House of Mandarin, stepping into the bar space in Mumbai represents a fresh frontier. “I just felt this entire space had so much potential, especially now with the Coastal Road opening up and Nariman Point and South Mumbai really picking up. I thought it’s a great time to do a bar, and I really wanted to redefine how cocktail bars are always seen,” she says.

The aim was to create something serious without the stuffiness that often accompanies craft cocktail culture in Mumbai. 8ish isn’t meant to feel like a big night-out production where you pull out your prized designer wear. Goenka keeps circling back to one phrase: “This is supposed to be South Bombay’s neighbourhood bar.” ‘Come as you are’ is her guiding idea and she means it. Shorts, suits, office bags, weekend moods. It all fits. The space reflects that ease.

The interiors don’t announce themselves loudly. Grey textured walls, soft leather seating, a maroon marble bar topped with tarnished copper, amber light pooling in corners... It’s handsome without being self-conscious, the kind of room that works equally well for a solo drink at the bar or a group spilling into the al fresco section.

The cocktails are where the thought process really comes into focus. Jishnu AJ helms the bar programme, and his approach sidesteps spectacle to focus on ingredient discovery. A seasoned mixologist with over a decade of experience at places like Ekaa and Koko, he rides his motorcycle across India hunting for offbeat ingredients—mugwort and chingfing (hogweed) from the northeast, guava leaves from coastal farms, yeast culture that’s sealed with millet and left to ferment for three months. “I wanted to give our guests something they wouldn’t get at other bars. What I’m trying to do is support local communities and build supply chains for these rare, foraged ingredients,” he tells me.

The ingredient-first philosophy translates into drinks organised not by spirits but by moods: experimental, comfort, ritualistic, and classics.

The experimental set is the bar at its most intuitive. It stretches your expectations without ever tipping into showmanship. Liquid Sand is where this restraint becomes evident. The drink glows golden-amber in its tall glass, almost hazy, with carbonation streaming upward. Gin and smoked agave form the backbone, while hints of the mugwort plant drift through it, herbaceous and faintly bitter. (Long before hops took over brewing, mugwort, an aromatic wild herb associated with lucid dreaming, was used in fruit blends for bittering and flavouring beer.) Lillet Blanc and supasawa give the drink a clean lift.

Since this cocktail bar is built around offbeat ingredients, Nearly Misbehaved, a bright and restless gin cocktail is next on my list. This time it’s chingfing (hogweed) lending a gentle peppery tingle and earthiness that adds depth and complexity. The sprig of dried hogweed that crowns the glass gives it an almost apothecary-like quality.

The mixologist then recommends Tongba, which belongs to the ritualistic category. White rum mingles with that three-month fermented millet. The result is earthy and almost ceremonial, recalling communal drinking traditions from the hills. It’s an unusual proposition for a Mumbai cocktail bar, but it makes sense in a space positioning itself as neighbourhood anchor rather than special-occasion destination.

I order the Garibaldi, curious how 8ish would handle a classic. It arrives as a study in gradient: bright coral-orange Campari at the base graduating into a thick peachy foam cap. That fluffy orange juice, aerated to mousse-like consistency, softens the bitter edges without neutering them. It’s still recognisably a Garibaldi, just more hospitable, the citrus foam dissolving on your tongue before the bitter follows through.

The whole programme avoids theatricality. Jishnu’s interested in provenance and technique, and the results land as drinks you’d actually want to have a second of, which is harder to achieve than it sounds.

The food menu reads like the result of Goenka’s stated approach: the team got together, had a bunch of drinks, wrote down what they wanted to eat, then elevated it slightly. It’s bar food that knows its lane—supportive, not scene-stealing.

The buff and bone marrow slider is a solid crowd-pleaser: bacon jam, cured egg yolk, enough richness to justify ordering another drink. The cheesy bread, which arrives as a golden pull-apart flower, works as an inverted French onion soup concept with white onion, smoked scamorza, and tomato-chilli jam. The Goan chorizo hummus swaps chickpeas for white beans, a small tweak that makes it lighter. The jackfruit taco plays with texture via water chestnuts. The fried chicken comes with fermented hot sauce and cheese fondue, and the chicken toasty with truffle hot sauce, and parmesan aioli hits that sweet spot between comforting and craveable. For something more substantial, the menu has drunken prawn noodles with plump prawns in a velvety peanut-forward sauce with the snap of snow peas.

Nothing here is pushing boundaries, but that’s not the assignment. It’s solid cooking in service of the larger experience.

Nariman Point still runs on its office logic: the morning arrival, the lunch scatter, the evening exodus. Only now there’s a corner that belongs to what comes after. It’s simply there when you need it, warm and low-lit, with drinks that reward attention (if you’re offering it) and satisfy (if you’re not).

Meal for two: ₹3,500 with alcohol

Timings: 5:30 pm to 1:30 am

Address: Ground floor, Express Towers, Ramnath Goenka Marg, Nariman Point, Mumbai 

Reservations: +91 9457118888 | reserve@8ish.in