Where to eat this July…in Mumbai

If you drew a circle around Bandra this month, you’d barely need to leave it to eat your way through half a dozen new restaurants. The suburb continues to attract almost every ambitious opening, from a listening bar to yet another all-day cafe.

But here’s another thing. This month’s openings are also refreshingly specific. One is devoted to regional flavours of Thailand, another puts naan centre stage. You’ll find southeast Asian hawker classics, and a cafe built around a running club. Even the listening bar is focused—the playlist and the plates both call to a specific era. Elsewhere, the old guard is evolving, with Gulmurg reopening after a careful refresh that will remind Mumbaikars why they loved it in the first place. Familiar names are stretching their legs. Veronica’s has crossed the sea link with a location-specific vibe and menu; Magazine Street Kitchen has reinvented itself as MSK, a stunning cultural and culinary space; and Palladium Social has transformed itself into the city’s most bonkers furniture showroom.

Here’s everywhere we’re eating this month.

Openings

Bandra House, Bandra

Bandra House Living Room, inside the new 39-key Bandra House boutique hotel (by IHCL SeleQtions/the Taj group) on Turner Road, feels more like a neighbourhood restaurant than a typical hotel dining room. The menu is available all day and highlights Bandra’s coastal heritage, focusing on fresh local ingredients and straightforward cooking. Breakfast begins with ‘Bandra poha’ and segues into the rest of the day with chicken pepper fry, Koliwada prawns, Malwani fish curry, Lahori chicken karahi and nihari gosht, khao suey, parmesan risotto, and burgers. Meals end with tiramisu, ras malai, or vegan coconut yoghurt cheesecake. With its programming, the hotel takes its neighbourhood-first idea beyond just food. Guests can sign up for events like A Culinary Pilgrimage, The Bandra Bungalow Walk, Starlit Strolls on Bandstand Promenade, and Rhythm of the ’Burbs, all designed to help visitors discover Bandra through its food, architecture, music, and history. The hotel itself is inspired by Bandra’s old bungalows. It features home-like interiors, local art, and a relaxed atmosphere that matches the vibe outside. The hotel even encourages guests to explore the neighbourhood rather than just stay inside.

Bndra W, Bandra

Bandra’s newest all-day restaurant casts its net unusually wide. Bndra W is open from 9 am to 1:30 am, starting as a breakfast and coffee spot before becoming a lunch venue, dinner restaurant, and cocktail bar by evening. Breakfast, served until 6 pm, includes Parsi akuri, Atlantic eggs Benedict on a croissant, truffle and Camembert baguettes, French toast, house-baked pastries, and protein bowls. The rest of the menu hops across cuisines, with crispy enoki mushrooms, potato mochi, yellowfin tuna crispy pizza, truffle beef carpaccio, sushi, fresh oysters, lobster rolls, roasted bone marrow, smash burgers, sourdough pizzas, Thai red curry with salmon, and desserts like seasonal torrija, sticky toffee pudding, and churros. The cocktail menu designs drinks after famous tipplers’ favourites. Among them are Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, and Vincent van Gogh. The conservatory-style interiors have black-and-white tiled floors and plenty of greenery. (We still can’t figure out how to pronounce it, though. Or are we now telling friends “Meet me at Bndra W”? That could be very confusing.)

Seasee, Bandra

Founded by hospitality entrepreneurs, Saamir Chandnani (Mirai) and Rinchen Angchuk (Kofuku and Heng Bok), Seasee draws from street-food traditions across southeast Asia, featuring dishes from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The menu reads like a greatest-hits collection from the region’s hawker centres and roadside stalls. Expect tom yum, Vietnamese pho, Thai mango salad, poh pia tod, chicken satay, Singapore chilli crab lajiao, pad Thai, mee goreng, char kway teow, and pla kapong (a whole seabass finished with Thai herbs). Desserts continue the theme with mango sticky rice, pandan burnt Basque cheesecake, and lapis, the layered Indonesian-Malaysian cake.

A fun feature is an interactive wok station, where diners pick their noodles, rice, protein, and sauces, then watch their meal be made, much like the fast-paced counters of southeast Asia’s night markets. Cocktails use local ingredients such as jackfruit, lemongrass, coconut, turmeric, and yuzu.

High Note, Bandra

High Note is a listening bar inspired by Bandra’s music culture of the 1970s, ’80s and '90s. This new 80-seater spot swaps DJ-led revelry for vinyl sessions, live performances, and themed music nights backed by a serious sound system. The food is by chef Gracian D’Souza, who has created a menu of bar plates that wander as freely as the playlist. Expect cremini mushroom cafreal kebabs, sambal oelek prawns, kimchi fried rice, triple-cooked pork sausages with miso caramelised onions and pineapple salsa, an adobo smash buff burger, and tequila-marinated buff tenderloin asado with chimichurri. Behind the bar, Eluther Gomes riffs on classics with drinks such as the Cassette Negroni, Soundcheck Highball, High Note No. 5, and Backstage Pass alongside sangrias, beer cocktails, and pre-Prohibition favourites. Nostalgia runs through more than just the playlist. It’s also in the food, the cocktails, and the easy-going neighbourhood feel.

Brevé, Bandra

Mumbai isn’t short of specialty coffee cafes now, but what makes Brevé different is that it started from Running Late by Brevé, the brand’s popular running club. This flagship space is designed for everything from post-run breakfasts and coffee chats to relaxed brunches and work meetings. The menu offers something for everyone, with both rich and healthy options. Guests can create their own breakfast board with choices like sourdough, eggs, avocado, smoked salmon, halloumi, Greek yoghurt, chia pudding, chicken sausages, fruit, and pastries. There are also west Asian halloumi bowls, miso prawns with soba and teriyaki, avocado chicken sandwiches with homemade fig jam, grilled miso tenderloin sandwiches, steak and grilled chicken dishes, plus baked treats such as a sugar-free mango cake and a banana walnut crumble cake. Coffee remains the focus, with brews, espresso drinks, and special options like pistachio cold foam cold brew, house dirty espresso, and coconut coffee. The cafe welcomes pets and seats 36. It’s also a place to gather for running events, cycling meet-ups, and community gatherings; more clubhouse than regular cafe.

Gulmurg, Kemp’s Corner

It’s been a while since anyone’s been excited about the once-favourite Gulmurg at The Shalimar Hotel. But now, after an 18-month renovation, Gulmurg has reopened, keeping much of what made it beloved for over 60 years while giving the restaurant a gentle and much-needed update rather than a full makeover. The kitchen has smartly avoided changing what already worked. Long-time customers will still find favourites like chicken makhanwala and paneer makhanwala on the menu, along with the north Indian and Mughlai dishes that have made Gulmurg famous since it opened in 1962. New dishes and seasonal specials have been added, but they are designed to complement the classics, not replace them. Expect dishes such as meen moilee, palak patta chaat, and Gulmarg Alaska. The third generation of the Advani family has updated the interiors and the dining room, bringing the restaurant into 2026 without losing too much of its history.

Juun, Churchgate

Eros building’s newest restaurant, Juun, is from the team behind Poetry by Love & Cheesecake and Sesami. It focuses on Cantonese cuisine, featuring dim sum, cheung fun, stir-fried dishes, and claypot rice. Highlights from Juun’s menu are the king crab crystal dumplings, chicken xiao long bao, prawn and lychee balls with yuzu chilli, tiger prawns in roasted pumpkin sauce, and a claypot rice with tenderloin and bone marrow. Desserts include Hong Kong egg tarts and dark chocolate crystal dumplings that look like har gow. The cocktail menu is inspired by Hong Kong’s skyline, so drinks are divided into Street Level, Mid Floor, and Penthouse. People who visit HKG often, IYKYK.

Sorena, Bandra

Sorena is huge. It occupies 11,000 sq ft across two floors at Mansionz One on Linking Road. The restaurant’s menu features five culinary destinations: Mumbai, New York, Sicily, Tokyo, and Istanbul. Each city is represented individually, offering dishes such as East Indian pork with bottle masala, Venetian butternut squash risotto, Sicilian consommé with slow-pulled chicken, Istanbul-inspired fattoush with Anatolian sumac, and a coconut crémeux influenced by Japanese techniques. An 11-foot-long island bar is located at the centre of the restaurant. The cocktail programme, curated by Dimi Lezinska, is inspired by big-city archetypes. For instance, we have drinks that invoke the Tokyo purist, the Roman aperitivo enthusiast, and the Bombay raconteur. Sorena’s multiple dining spaces also include a community table crafted from a single piece of wood, and a members’ room.

New outlets and branches

Palladium Social in Lower Parel now looks like an IKEA store

Social has taken its long-running obsession with playful interiors to a new level. The reopened Palladium outpost at Gourmet Village looks as though someone handed the design team the keys to an IKEA store and told them to have fun. There are living room nooks, mock kitchens, catalogue-style signage, dangling price tags, an oven that doubles as a communal table and enough tongue-in-cheek details to reward a slow wander before you even open the menu.

The food sticks to what Social does best. Regulars will find favourites such as butter chicken biryani, Old School chicken tikka, bao, burgers, pizzas, nachos and chakna, backed by the brand’s familiar cocktail programme. The move to Gourmet Village also gives the cafe-bar a roomier setting than its previous home, and on our visit we were thinking: only Riyaaz Amlani could have pulled off a refresh like this one.

It’s all delightfully daft, and that’s precisely the point. For a couple of hours, you get to eat inside what feels like the world’s quirkiest furniture showroom, without having to assemble anything afterwards.

Veronica’s opens in Lower Parel with a SoBo(ish) menu

One of Bandra’s favourite sandwich shops has opened a second location in Kamala Mills. Veronica’s has crossed the sea link with its stacked sandwiches unchanged, but the Lower Parel spot is bigger, busier and designed for longer days that start with coffee and finish with cocktails. The popular favourites are all here, including Pass the Pastrami, The Big Floyd, and Oh Shrimp! Po’Boy and the Mumbai Chilli Cheese Melt. New additions include the Very Vero Bombay Toastie, with green chutney, roasted beetroot, and a hash brown; the Mapo Tofu Sloppy Joe; the Frenchie Banh Mi on a croissant; and the Fish-O-Fillet, Veronica’s fun twist on the fast-food classic. Beyond sandwiches, the menu includes tostadas, salads, garlic bread with spicy miso butter, creative pastries, soft serves, and cakes. The biggest addition is the drinks. A new aperitivo-inspired cocktail list keeps things light and easy, while the coffee menu expands to include pistachio and rose lattes, sparkling cascara cold brew, and hojicha lattes.

Ministry of Naan, Bandra

After Chembur, this naan-centred spot has arrived in Perry Cross Road. The menu revolves around fresh naan, kulcha, and rumali roti, making them the main event rather than something to mop up gravy with. There’s cream cheese naan, garlic truffle brie cheese naan, blue cheese kulcha and keema-stuffed naans, alongside clever naan turnovers filled with butter chicken, paneer makhani or chicken tikka masala. Beyond MoN’s breads, expect Turkish Adana seekh kebabs, truffle mushroom galauti, a weekend-only mutton Karachi bun, dal makhani, nalli nihari, and Kashmiri rogan josh. The 10-seater stays open till 1:30 am, and if you don’t feel like getting out of your car, they’ll bring the food to you. A QR code shared alongside the menu opens a founder-curated playlist designed to accompany the meal.

Specials

Magazine Street Kitchen, Byculla

Ten years after opening in a former ammunition warehouse in Darukhana, and after a short break, Magazine Street Kitchen is back as MSK, now aiming to be a multi-disciplinary cultural institution. Along with its chef's table, The Counter, we can look forward to collaborations, workshops, residencies, live music, and cocktail nights that bring together chefs, bartenders, artists, and curious diners. Its tall steel arches and open kitchen are still part of the charm, and the previous bakery kitchen has become a stylish, intimate bar with moody lighting. This industrial spot is in a neighbourhood better known for ship-breaking yards than for destination dining, but the stunning refurb is reason enough to make the trip.

What really makes MSK stand out is its programming (the schedule gets updated here). Right now, their ‘Uncharted India’ series, which kicked off with a meal at Kolkata’s Amar Khamar, highlights often-overlooked regional cuisines. The July schedule starts with a four-day cooking camp for teenagers from July 6 to 9. Adults get their chance on July 18. Couples can trade their usual date night for a mixology class on July 11, followed by pizza. The highlight of the month is Barō Bakery from Bali. On July 17, founder-chef Emerson Manibo will bring his 72-hour-fermented dough to Mumbai for a lively pizza block party. The month wraps up with Soulfood Mumbai's seafood boil on July 25 and 26. If you’ve always liked Magazine Street Kitchen for feeling unlike anywhere else in Mumbai, MSK doubles down on exactly that.

Luv’s new menu and cocktail programme, Lokhandwala

Luv’s newest menu also features its first cocktail programme, Bad Decisions. Chef Akash Deshpande keeps using flavours from the Indian coast, shaped by his memories layered with his kitchen chops, rather than sticking to traditional regional styles. The menu includes kokum prawns topped with a garnish drawn from his mother’s prawn pickle; appas yetti rotti, a seafood version of Mangalore’s popular kori rotti; mushroom with pithla; a rich bone marrow preparation; truffle gnocchi; bok choy tacos; nori noodles with shiitake; and a light, fluffy cauliflower soufflé. Dessert is a modern twist on the classic favourite Black Forest.

In keeping with the theme, the new cocktail menu draws inspiration from the kitchen, using house-made infusions, savoury flavours, smoke, and restrained sweetness. For example, Bandit Rum layers smoked pineapple over dark rum for a gently charred sweetness, while Drunken Star leans savoury with house-made pickle notes.

Press Club at Slink & Bardot, Worli

Fresh off its debut at number 34 on North America’s 50 Best Bars list for 2026, Press Club makes its first trip to India with Conosh. On July 8, Slink & Bardot will host a guest shift by Press Club as part of a four-city India tour in partnership with Woodford Reserve. Every cocktail on the menu highlights the bourbon’s signature notes of vanilla, caramel, and spice. This offers Mumbai drinkers a chance to sample serves from one of the continent’s most acclaimed bars without leaving SoBo. The tour then heads to Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurugram, but Mumbai gets the first pour. Cocktails start at ₹1,299.

Pause’s monsoon menu, Bandra West

This Pali Hill café’s seasonal menu stays true to its plant-based philosophy while leaning into wet-weather warmers. There is a comforting bowl called Ramen in Rain, where soba and tofu swim in a peanut-gochujang broth. A monsoon kheema bunny chow is filled with spiced soy kheema, and a Mumbai Monsoon Delight pairs vadas with local chutneys and cutting chai. There are also Korean samosas, Taco ’Bout galoutis wrapped in Malabar paratha, and crisp cheesy jalapeño poppers. Desserts go from a dark chocolate salted caramel cookie and banana cinnamon tea cake to a sizzling sticky toffee date pudding and Chai Misu, the cafe's plant-based riff on tiramisu. The drinks meet the rainy-day mood with Vietnamese coconut milk coffee, a tiramisu latte, a toasted hazelnut latte, s’mores hot chocolate, and plenty of ginger tea.

Tóa’s new tasting menu, Churchgate

At Tóa 66, the vegetarian Thai restaurant, the latest seven-course menu focuses on the everyday cooking of the central and Isan regions of Thailand. The meal starts with naem kruk, a crunchy rice salad flavoured with kaffir lime and lemongrass, then moves through delicate pak mo suki yaki, larb tofu, breakfast-style khao tom soup, spicy jungle curry with jasmine rice, and phad kee mao with tofu and holy basil. Desserts keep things going with a layered khanom chan and the Makrut, combining chocolate foam with kaffir lime, black sesame, and citrus. The plan is to focus on balance rather than spiciness, with sweet, sour, salty, and herbal tastes blending in every dish. Drinks have also been fully redesigned. Cocktails take their names and ideas from Bangkok neighbourhoods like Thonglor, Sathorn, and Sukhumvit, while beer-based drinks play on Thailand’s seasons. Booze-free drinks, also packed with Thai flavours, are available.

Gallops’ monsoon cabanas, Mahalaxmi

One of Mumbai’s prettiest, greenest outdoor dining spots has had a seasonal refresh, but not on its menu. Gallops has reopened its rainy-season cabanas overlooking the Mahalaxmi Racecourse with a lighter, garden-inspired look, adding floral decorations, softer lighting, and air-conditioned outdoor seating that makes staying through the monsoon and afterwards more comfortable. The menu focuses on Gallops’ popular dishes. Starters include melba toast, palak anjeer kebab, achari chicken tikka, Goan grilled prawns, and corn ribs, followed by well-known main courses such as dal makhani, butter chicken, akhroti lasuni palak, and nalli nihari. Summer cocktails feature an alphonso picante and lychee mezcaltini, along with classics like the French 75 and the espresso martini. There are worse ways to be al fresco this monsoon.