Mumbai’s Eros building is becoming the buzziest luxe dining hub

After 13 years in Bandra, Pali Bhavan founder and creative director Mishali Sanghani brings the restaurant to Mumbai’s historic Eros building, pairing familiar Indian classics with a contemporary sensibility.

Pali Bhavan’s new chapter unfolds inside Eros, a landmark Art Deco building dating back to 1938. For founder and creative director Mishali Sanghani, the move was an opportunity to let South Bombay's history shape the restaurant rather than recreate what came before.

With a menu rooted in the Indian food she grew up eating, Sanghani focuses on familiarity, consistency and ingredients, choosing to refine beloved classics rather than reinvent them. Here, she talks about Pali Bhavan’s return to South Bombay, the influence of Eros, and why the best Indian food is the kind you find yourself craving at midnight.

Harper's Bazaar India: What made you want to bring Pali Bhavan into a place with so much history rather than starting from scratch somewhere else?

Mishali Sanghani: Starting from scratch is easy. You get a blank room, and nothing pushes back. Eros doesn't allow that. It's a 1938 Art Deco building that has watched this city reinvent itself for nearly a century. I didn't want a space that would just do as it's told. I wanted one that would fight me a little. After 13 years in Bandra, I wasn't looking to recreate what we'd already built. Eros was a room to let Pali grow into something without pretending to be new.

HB: How much did the history and character of Eros influence the way you imagined this new Pali Bhavan?

MS: Very much. I spent the whole project resisting the obvious version of it. We took our cues from the history and character of the building, the neighbourhood around it, capturing that through material and light, letting the room read as inevitable rather than dressed up. As though it was always here, we simply moved in.

HB: After 13 years in Bandra, what does returning to South Bombay mean to you?

MS: South Bombay has never tried to become something else. That's rare, and I think it's why I feel at home here.

HB: What does South Bombay offer that Bandra doesn't, and vice versa?

MS: They run on different clocks. Bandra is a teenager. Brilliant, restless, changes its mind every season, occasionally insufferable, and I adore it. South Bombay is a grown-up who already knows who they are and isn't performing for you. Bandra is always becoming. South Bombay already is.

HB: Why was it important to stay close to familiar Indian flavours?

MS: Familiarity is underrated. People think they want to be surprised, but what they return for is the thing they already love, done right. I would rather nail the thing you've eaten a thousand times than dazzle you once with something you'll never order again.

HB: How do you decide when to preserve a classic and when to reinterpret it?

MS: The dish decides. Some classics are already perfect, and touching them is vandalism. Others have a little air in them, and you can push. The whole skill is telling the two apart. Get it wrong and the dish is either forgettable or broken.

HB: Do you think we're seeing a larger return of South Bombay as a food and cultural destination?

MS: Yes. People love a rediscovery. South Bombay was the original cool, and it's back.

HB: How did you decide which Indian classics absolutely had to make it onto the menu?

MS: The dangerous ones. Butter Chicken, Dal Makhani, Chole Bhature. Everyone already has a version of these in their head. That's exactly why they had to be there. It's easy to impress someone with a dish they've never had. It's much harder to serve them the thing they've had a hundred times and make them go quiet.

HB: Was the idea to create a menu that represents the diversity of Indian food, or simply bring together dishes you personally love?

MS: Dishes I love. I grew up around home cooking from every part of the country, so a normal week meant eating your way across India without thinking about it. The menu is just that habit. The food I love, which happens to come from everywhere.

HB: How do you make familiar staples feel special without overcomplicating or reinventing them?

MS: A staple is special when it's the same every time. People come back for the comfort of knowing it'll taste the way it always has. That kind of consistency takes real care; you're not chasing something new, you're protecting something people already trust.

HB: How did you approach creating a menu that feels distinctly Indian while still feeling contemporary and elevated?

MS: The dishes are the classics, but they don't sit as heavy as they used to. The flavours you know, without the weight. That's what feels current. Nothing reinvented.

HB: Was the intention to let the ingredients and regional flavours take centre stage rather than reinventing the cuisine?

MS: Yes. It all starts with the ingredients, sourced well and used fresh. India gives you an extraordinary range to work with, roots, whole spices, aromatic leaves, seeds, nuts, fresh and dried fruit. Each one brings its own aroma and bite.

HB: How do you create dishes that feel rooted in tradition but still speak to a more discerning, contemporary diner?

MS: By refusing to trade the emotion for the polish. Indian food is memory before it is anything else. A scent or a spice that drops you back into your mother's kitchen, a Sunday you didn't know you missed. Refine that away, and you've made something expensive and dead. A dish you admire once and forget is a failure. The ones worth cooking are the ones you crave at midnight, in bed, slightly annoyed you can't have them.

All images: Pali Bhavan  

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