Bar Reviews > Mumbai > Tavern

The Fariyas Hotel, 42, Arthur Bunder Road, Colaba
Ph.22042911
Timings: 12:00 pm - 1:30 am

"A signature bar for a fine drinking experience" is how Tavern (& beyond) describes itself. Those who know the Tavern of old, will remember it as a wild rocking place where booze could be had cheap till the wee hours of the morning. Subsequently, we are told, the prices went up steeply. The patrons, as patrons will, went elsewhere. The management think-tank went into a huddle and decided that the best way to bolster the bottom-line was to turn it into a boutique bar.

We hit Tavern during one of the Diwali holidays and were surprised to see it fairly empty. My companions, who were habitues of the earlier avatar, had a lot to say about the transformation. The decor is very late-90s corpo. The giant screen has moved to another wall, as has the bar. Mid-70s music has given way to mid- to late-80s. There is an overall air of gentility to the place now.

The cocktail selection in this place is one of the most varied that I have seen. There are 42 varieties of cocktails and 5 varieties of mocktails. They are trying to please all the people all the time and, well they might, if they can keep up the spread. We asked Edward, the friendly trail-boss of this joint, to name one cocktail to drink here if one was to drink only one cocktail and he suggested a Cool Cucumber (vodka, cointreau, lemon, mint in a clever combination). We also decided to have a Bahamamama (peach and apricot daiquiri) and a Belly Button (vodka and Malibu chased with orange juice). The C.C was very good ,with a nice minty aftertaste and so was the Bahamamama, which combined the fruit and liquor part very well (most daiquiris I have tasted have not managed to walk the thin line this successfully). The B.B were slugs of vodka, malibu and o.j. in vessels which looked disconcertingly like what one has seen in Chem. labs (maybe I’m just ignorant-they are probably the last word in cutlery haute couture). I don’t think we were really evolved enough to appreciate the Belly Button since it just tasted like vodka, malibu and o.j.

The bartenders (who seem very enthu) have been trained by a lady called Mrs. Basu- who has written a book on cocktails (I’ve to get a copy-she knows her stuff). The cocktails were good enough for us to sample some more and, boy, were we glad we did. We ordered a Bloody Mary and a Strawberry Sting (strawberry crush, tequila, peach schnapps and lemon) and a mocktail called Spice Girls ( something greenish). The B.M. was the best I’ve tasted so far and this will remain a benchmark for a long time. The S.S. was also very refreshing. It is quite a different drink. First you think it is another lemony concoction, but if you dip your straw deep (oops), the resulting flavours will definitely hit you hard (as they did me).

We had Aloo Palak Tikkis and Corny Pepper Fritters, both of which were very good. We were quite amazed at the flood of free canapes that we were treated to. The bill came as a shock to us ,with a 30% tax. We were so aghast that we overcame our scruples and forbore to point out that they had not charged us for the Strawberry Sting.

The new incarnation of the Tavern has been in action for two months now and is supposedly doing well. In the early nineties the place used to throng with the yuppie types who had just begun to work. Tavern like some other drinking joints I know of, is probably trying to keep pace with their slower and more expensive lifestyles. It is a strategy that is fraught with risk.