Saltwater Cafe
Rose Minar Annexe, Chapel Road, Next to Mt Carmel Church, Bandra Reclamation, Bandra West, Mumbai
Ph: 022 2643 4441
Meal for one without alcohol: Rs 800
T
here was a time when the term “Bandra Girl” was enough to conjure up visions of frilly petticoats, black polka-dotted skirts, bouffant hairdos and red “Fuck-me” stilettos. Now, it’s the Bandra boyz who are strutting their stuff. The young men in charge at Saltwater Grill wear slickly gelled hair and coffee-and-cream uniforms with casual grace. They present you with free bread baskets and small pots of white butter, along with the most mouth-watering cocktails, as if they had just stepped out of Godfather. Once you sit it’s more like Hogwarts School. The tables are long, bare and wooden, with bench-like seats. Sheet glass windows overlook main street Bandra, with its many beauty salons. (Maybe that’s what happened to the Bandra Girl. She grew up and became a hair-dresser.) The food changes with the chefs’ mood, but they do the basics well: soups, pastas, fresh salads with a judicious helping of European cheeses, sausages and herbs. It’s great to have them with wine, but that will set you back a bit. Never mind, you can contemplate dessert—crepes, the dreaded Tiramisu that replaced caramel custard on every menu, or just plain sorbets and ice-creams. This is a place you can keep coming back to, again and again.