Mumbai’s Late Checkout wants you to stay for one last drink

Restaurateurs Pawan Shahri and Nikita Harisinghani are reminiscing about the time when they’d hang out “all the time” at the wildly popular brewpub Barking Deer, which used to be located just 500 meters from where we are right now. “We also loved this bar where all drinks were the price of the date on which the first Sunday of the month fell,” smiles Harisinghani wistfully. 

My partner and I politely sip our own cocktails—an astute spirit-forward tequila cocktail with an in-house bell pepper and chilli tincture oozing a Picante-like savouriness, and a gin-umeshu knockout with in-house nori shrub in a matte-black goblet with a side of cranberry softgels—and are reminded of our own nights at blueFrog and its gig-friendly MegaFrog bottles filled with LIITs. Neither of them exist anymore, but we all nod when Shahri sighs, “Mumbai’s bar culture really came of age a decade ago.”

Few things are more conducive to meandering nostalgia than post-work weeknight drinks. Except in the case of the founders of Chrome Hospitality, there is a point to it all—and that point is the very space we are sitting in. Late Checkout is a bright new crystal of a cocktail bar located deep inside the lanes of Todi Mill in Mumbai’s financial district. For the duo, the bar was really conceived from that yearning for a simpler time—a time when you didn’t have to pick between the 7pm or 9pm dinner slot at your favourite Japanese restaurant or get death stares for opening your laptop at a buzzing coffee shop. It’s designed to take you to a place where  going out is more about having a good time, less about difficult wardrobe decisions or the theatre of seeing and being seen. 

But simple is not to be mistaken with “no-frills”, because Late Checkout comes with sights that will make you flip out that phone and Instagram it right away. In fact, it commands your attention from the moment you step onto the golf cart that magically arrives at the parking lot to transport you to the marble check-in desk, behind which hangs a Wes Anderson-esque hotel key rack. Inspired by their travels through Spain and Switzerland, Harisinghani (who turns designer once again, after Mumbai’s Gigi) has kept the original brick walls and floor of the textile mill that once stood here, but knocked off most of a mezzanine floor, dropped a glorious skylight in place of a concrete ceiling, added a generous amount of candles, giant DIY lamps and vintage chandeliers, gauzy curtains, large tropical plants and teakwood furniture. If that isn’t enough whimsy, a table in the coffee bar area is covered in melted wax, a witchy art piece of its own kind.  

At the heart of this roomy, yet intimate space, is a large omakase bar, backlit by a floor-to-ceiling display rack. Under a spotlight, mixologist (or “lowkey scientist”, as Shahri calls him) Prithvi Agarwal and his team of bartenders produce a limited cocktail menu of classics and signatures, crafted with a generous use of cutting-edge technology and housemade tinctures and shrubs—all of which he’ll discuss with great gusto if you pulled up a chair at his laboratory. In Missing Trust Fund, homemade mushroom bitters, truffle oil and Scotch combine to evoke deeply satisfying umami flavours; in the Slow Roast cocktail, coffee brewed in a 16 hour Yama drip is deployed with coconut oil-washed vodka to replicate the flavours of a Vietnamese iced coffee. 

As Shahri and Harisinghani share stories of evenings at the award-winning Sips Barcelona and the omakase bars of Phuket Old Town—taking notes everywhere to do their bit for the modern cocktail era of Mumbai—chef Amit Dhoundiyal sends out a volley of Asian-style bar bites from the kitchen. This includes the nibble-worthy goat cheese capperino tarts, the memorable cheesy crab rangoon dip and wonton crackers and the unforgettable and utterly fresh smoked tuna carpaccio which comes with an avocado sorbet and is doused in truffle ponzu. 

For the small plates, the chef works his forte of marrying Asian flavours with French technique. The Kabocha chilli prawns come on a bed of spicy pumpkin garlic sauce which you’ll want to wipe off the plate, with extra mantou steamed buns. Upon Harisinghani’s insistence, we try the duck curry puffs— after all, it’s not the most popular bird on Indian plates—and discover the dish that we’ll return for, thanks in no small part to a balanced Japanese curry sauce, light, crisp pastry and duck meat that is so well done it no longer tastes like duck (a compliment in this writer’s book). 

Chef Dhoundiyal and team try to abide by zero-waste cooking philosophies, we’re told—and their menu is meant to change seasonally, but for now, the large plates (if you ever get there) are all about classic, comforting flavours—evident in the creamy, buttery cacio e pepe la udon and a decadent pepper-crusted buff tenderloin. Dessert is similarly artful and delicious—the warm chocolate tart will likely elicit an enchanted expletive or two, but we’d also recommend a round of their artisanal gelatos.  

Stuffed like their curry pastries, but not satisfied, we linger into our fourth hour over the burnt onion and whiskey gelato (another example of their attempt at a zero-waste approach), and talk about what really makes a good bar. “It has to be casual, not intimidating,” says Shahri. “It should not require a dress code,” laughs Harisinghani, adding how visiting their own Bandra bar (Gigi) has become an ordeal for this reason. 

In that sense Late Checkout—meant to evoke the comfort and leisureliness of that hotel bar where you stop by for that one last drink in your muckiest airport fit—serves its purpose. It’s a metaphor for Lower Parel’s fast-moving crowd, but applies quite literally, in our case, as the golf cart pulls up again on a street that’s turned dead quiet, and Agarwal offers to whip up a couple more cocktails that will thrive in paper cups on our way to catch a red-eye flight. “A good bar must have the element of discovery about it,” continues Shahri, adding that they are now in fact toying with the idea of building a hotel around this concept bar. “A place that you tell your friends about, a place to hang out and have a conversation with the bartender. Feels more personal, doesn’t it?” 

Meal for two: ₹3,000 (without alcohol)

Timings: Wed-Sun: 7pm-1 am, Sat and Sun, open for brunch 12 noon to 4 pm

Address: Mathuradas Mill Compound, 126, SJ Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400013

For reservations, call: 9833443430 /9833443431