Bandra’s Joshi House is now in Worli and every floor is a surprise

What’s the common denominator between a Balinese bhel, prawns dunked in warm kokum and laal maas, you ask? None at all. It’s reason enough that they exist. It’s the same reason we can seamlessly switch between Karan Aujla’s ‘Wavy’ and the new Bon Iver album. Not everything is a mystery in Joshi House, though. There is the influence of owner Suren Joshi’s Rajasthani heritage in the dal baatis, Jaisalmer stone jali screens and the terracotta pots greeting you at the entrance. Unlike its predecessor in Bandra, the new Joshi House is not housed in a white haveli. It could not have been, situated as it is in the heart of Worli Koliwada—one of Mumbai’s oldest fishing villages, home to the kolis, the first residents of the city. The Koli influence makes its way into the menu too: Rawa fried bombil, prawn Koliwada and coconut crab curry.

At a time when there is no reason for us to go out and kill our souls in the bowels of increasingly crumbling cities, a restaurant needs to be more than the food it serves. We can’t afford to assault our senses with another predictable bowl of truffle pasta or some vague version of avocados and guacamole that makes even the saddest gruel look like Manna. Joshi House, to me, attempts to solve this problem in the way it’s laid out—deceptively simple and not stuck in outdated notions of space. In most cases, it works. The blips are in the food here and there. A yellow cement floor is the bedrock for the first floor that gets broken by chairs with lions as handles. On all four sides, it is enclosed by transparent windows.

First look inside the open plan space

Pankaj Anand