May’26, Mumbai: Bandra has never really needed help knowing how to have a good time. Papi, the city's newest address, just makes the argument for doing it better. It sits somewhere between a late-night European bar and a house party that got out of hand in the best possible way. The kind of place you …
May’26, Mumbai: Bandra has never really needed help knowing how to have a good time. Papi, the city’s newest address, just makes the argument for doing it better. It sits somewhere between a late-night European bar and a house party that got out of hand in the best possible way. The kind of place you find yourself describing to people for weeks after, and then taking them back to just so they understand.
Most bars peak early and coast through the rest of the night. Papi works the other way. The menus, the music, and the energy are all built to move, what you walk into at eight is a different room entirely from what it becomes by midnight, and that’s not a happy coincidence. That’s the whole idea.
The Space
Walk in, and the room earns your attention immediately. A cocktail on tap greets you as you enter, alongside a thoughtfully designed coffee bar that signals this is as much a place for slow mornings as it is for late nights. Every detail has been considered, and the room shows it quietly confident and immediately easy to be in. Warm amber light plays across layers of wood, stone, and brushed metal, while a bar anchors the space without ever demanding it.
The layout is open and fluid, designed for movement for the kind of night that begins at a table and naturally drifts toward the bar, or the other way around entirely. Once you step further inside, a glass roof opens up above you, welcoming in natural light that falls gently through the space. Skylights draw daylight deep into the room, giving it an airy, unhurried feel. An outdoor seating area extends the experience even further, relaxed and inviting.
It’s a space that adapts effortlessly, just as compelling at brunch or on a slow Sunday morning as it is at midnight.
The interiors were conceived by Loop Design Studio, who wove African textiles into the walls, across the roof of the private dining room, and along the main bar itself, not as décor, but as texture and tone.It is a room that wears its thought lightly: everything deliberate, nothing laboured, and the whole of it warm in a way that good design rarely achieves without trying too hard.
And then there’s the name – PAPI. In Spanish, it leans toward love; in Hindi, it edges toward sinner. Take it the way you want. Either way, you’re here for a good time.
The Cocktails
Everything at Papi starts here.
The cocktail programme is the bar’s truest identity, expressive, ingredient-led, and completely unwilling to play it straight. The menu travels between savory, tropical, floral, and spirit-forward without apologising for any of it.
The brines, foams, and distillates are developed entirely in-house, building a flavour vocabulary that is specific to Papi and difficult to replicate anywhere else. There is also a considered crossover between the bar and the kitchen, herbs, citrus, ferments, so the line between what you are drinking and what you are eating becomes pleasantly blurry.
The cocktail menu does its own kind of storytelling. Stripped of familiar names, the drinks are simply titled Cocktail No. 1 through 10 suggesting the classics, but never quite confirming them. It becomes a conversation in itself, inviting curiosity, comparison, and a bit of guesswork at the table or the bar. From a chamomile whiskey highball with salted peach foam to a savory martini built on cucumber and dill brine to a spirit-forward old fashioned, the cocktail menu will surprise you and comfort you all at once.
What sets the programme apart further is that Papi’s cocktails are served on tap, a rare offering in the city that ensures every pour is exactly as it was intended. Three cocktails on tap- Aperol, Espresso Martini, and Paloma greet you as you enter, poured fresh each day, light, fizzy, and ready without ceremony.Alongside, a rotating selection of freshly brewed craft beers on tap rounds out a bar that clearly knows what it is doing.
The Food
Papi is cocktail-first. But the food doesn’t know that, and it shows.
The kitchen’s focus is on small plates, food built for movement, for sharing, for a table that’s still picking at things an hour in. The focus is on small plates done with real intention; shareable, well-portioned, and easy to move through in the way that only food made for a good night out can be.
The cooking draws from coastal, Latin, Mediterranean and pan-Asian references, always coming back to three things: acidity, freshness, and umami. What makes it distinctly Papi’s is the willingness to pull a dish apart and do it their way, the Sichuan Paella being the clearest example of that instinct, a dish that makes you wonder why no one did it sooner. The Buff Carpaccio with Truffle is precise and indulgent in equal measure. The Ricotta Reachado brings a coastal sharpness that cuts clean through the richer plates.
The pasta programme is done entirely in-house, and with intention. The pasta is made entirely in-house, with a variety that shifts and surprises, each one chosen for the dish it’s built around rather than reached for out of habit. The Al Tartufo pizza and Radiatori alla Vodka bring the kind of comfort that earns its place at a bar. And the Dark Chocolate Mousse closes things on exactly the right note, rich, composed, and the kind of thing you find yourself thinking about on the way home.
The People Behind It
“Bandra is a very aware market. People go out often, they know what they like, and they can tell when something is trying too hard. The bar leads the experience at Papi, but the food has to keep pace with it, plates that can be shared and ordered over time, with deliberate contrast between light and rich, familiar and unexpected.” said Aditya Wanwari, Co-Founder of Papi.
“Papi was designed to build slowly, to shift as the night progresses, so the experience at 8 PM feels completely different from what it becomes by midnight. Every detail, the way the light shifts, how the cocktails are structured, the pacing of the menu, has been considered to contribute to a certain feeling.” added Ansh Kapoor, Co-Founder of Papi.
About Papi
Papi is Bandra’s newest bar and dining destination, sitting at the intersection of a late-night bar and an effortlessly social dining room. Equally compelling over a slow Sunday brunch as it is past midnight, it is a space built for nights that have no real reason to end.
The venue is the first from co-founders Ansh Kapoor and Aditya Wanwari, and the opening expression of a larger hospitality vision spanning restaurants, bars, and hotels. Ansh brings a culinary background rooted in international kitchen experience, while Aditya brings a sharp eye for the kind of hospitality that feels invisible in the best possible way.
Factsheet
Address: Papi, Ground Floor,712, Bajaj Niwas, Off Linking Road, next to AND showroom, Khar west, Mumbai 400052
Operational hours:
Dinner: 06:30pm to 01:00am
Contact: Reservations and enquiries via Instagram
Instagram: @papi.bombay
Seating capacity: 60
Cost for two: INR 4000 for two
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