At The Library, you can grab a book and a banging meal

In an age when book clubs are launching faster than one can finish reading a novel, The Library at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai seems like an obvious response to that gap in the market.

Just this weekend, Nita Ambani launched the literary cafe with much fanfare, taking over all our timelines. Among the attendees was host Sonali Bendre alongside a stream of recognisable faces ranging from Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan to Kajol, Mira and Shahid Kapoor, and Vikrant Massey.

The perfect spot to host a new-age literary salon, at The Library you will find yourself surrounded by bookshelves holding as many as 4,500 titles, all of which are available for sale, as you catch up with your fellow litterateurs.

“The space is designed to reveal itself slowly,” says designer and architect Ashiesh Shah, who has divided it into three sections, each with a different aesthetic and function. “As you move from one section to the other, the interiors go from dark wood to light wood, and the colour of the walls goes from dark green to sage green between the coffee bar and the main seating area, giving each section its visual highlight,” explains Shah, who has lent this venue a lived-in living-room feel.

The 2,750 sq ft space can accommodate about 70 book-obsessed people in one seating. The main seating area has a fireplace (a nod to the libraries at Isha Ambani’s alma mater in the US), sofas to sink into, and even some wingback chairs for solitary reading sessions. The selection of books is as wide as the audience this place hopes to attract: tomes by Assouline and Phaidon, volumes on Dior and YSL, and books about Mumbai architecture, besides fiction by Meg Mason and RF Kuang, and a dedicated section by Amar Chitra Katha designed for children.

But it’s The Library’s shapeshifting quality that makes it unique. A cafe and bookshop by day, the venue can also become a room made for engaging conversations with authors taking over the stage in the evening, and later, as the night progresses, a place to discuss your latest read over some great cocktails. While NMACC already has the Arts Café and the Theatre Cafe that invite the culturati to convene, this latest addition ups the ante by giving its well-read patrons a third space where they can get a great book and a glass of wine to go with it.

The restaurant’s first touch point is a cute window that you can see as soon as you enter the mall via gate 11. On display are bakes you can grab with a coffee. Beyond the display, around a bonsai banyan tree, is a circular coffee bar serving locally sourced single-origin coffee, matcha, and an elaborate tea programme by Mumbai-based Dancing Leaf.

The menu at The Library, curated by Aditi Dugar, is a well-rounded list of small plates and hearty meals. The potato hashers, part of the breakfast specials, were a hit at every table when we visited. The ghee roast prawns that come on a bed of pearl couscous and a curry-leaf tadka tomato salsa is a riot of spice, richness, and tang. If you are the kind to order one dish and spend the day reading, may we direct you to the dessert section, where orange-chocolate cake, Matilda cake, and mille feuille all seem like worthy reading companions. “The menu takes inspiration from food cultures around the world, with a mix of contemporary dishes that make the experience interesting but also approachable. We wanted the space to work effortlessly through the day, whether you’re dropping in for a morning coffee, fresh viennoiserie, a healthy breakfast, a lunch with friends or a buzzy evening for drinks, pinchos, and dinner,” adds Dugar.

The books-themed bar has an on-theme cocktail menu full of drinks with bookish names, like First Edition, Margin Notes, and Bookmark. For remote workers, The Library presents a better alternative to a drab coffee shop. For others like us, there is plenty of reasons to return. Besides its shoppable books, The Library has a dedicated space for programming, with a stage and a projector that can be dropped down when required. This month, the calendar features a comics and cartooning workshop by Abhijit Kini and conversations featuring authors such as Shanta Gokhale, Devdutt Pattanaik, and Meher Mirza. The idea is to host events three times a week, across panel discussions, conversations, storytelling, and performances. And if you are looking for a venue for your book club’s next meeting? Reservations are now open.

Address: Ground floor, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Gate 11, Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai

Timings: 8:30 am to 11: 30 pm

Meal for two: ₹1,800 plus taxes (includes alcohol)

For reservations, call : +91 81044 15262