Food & Drink

Perched high above the hubbub of Greater Kailash II market sits No Vacancy, a relatively new kid on the block. They are, in their own words, ‘Not a secret. Not a speakeasy. Just a bar above the market, hidden in plain sight.’  The space itself is house party-esque. Outside, the lettering carrying their name is coolly chiaroscuro, with light casting shadow on some of the other letters. Inside, a long well-lit bar with a ledge for seating that stretches from one end of the wall to another, with tables at small distances. The open balcony at one end and the large mirror at the other make rooftop bar seem much larger than it is.  Signature cocktails at No Vacancy are unique, and presented in ways you won’t see elsewhere in the city. Take the Shark Attack, which comes with a glass of clear tequila and ice, paired with a tiny shark filled with wine and berry cordial. Empty the latter into the former and you have a scene straight out of Jaws in your table. No, I’m not exaggerating – the staff add to the drama by drumming their hands on the counter as the shark is dropped in.  Other drinks go big on weird flavours. The Wild Escape is earthy, chocolatey, but packs an umami punch that’s said to be inspired by shrooms. The Strawberry Cheesecake is a crowd favourite, with mezcal, vermouth and gin coming together with celery balancing them out, topped with a strawberry foam that does, in fact, feel like a strawberry cheesecake in a drink. Nostalgia seekers can order the Bournvita, which is somewhere between an espresso martini and a White Russian, topped with Froot Loops.  What REALLY sets No Vacancy apart, though, is the service. The hosts greet you like you’re an old pal and will go the extra mile to make everyone feel at home. Three shots ordered for a table of four WILL come with an extra on-the-house shot. If someone’s not drinking, a free mocktail will magically appear on the table. Tables celebrating birthdays have shots or slices of cake sent their way too. In a day and age where every establishment’s out to make a quick buck, these small gestures go a long way and make sure drinkers come back for more. 

My first thought upon entering Barbet & Pals is how many drinks it's going to take for me to be able to laugh at the same pitch as the other folks guffawing inside. That, and the meanish rumination on how many people know that a barbet's a kind of bird, though the decor's made it glaringly obvious, from the birds flying off the servers' lapels to the little winged stirrers clattering about inside highball glasses. Barbet is mercifully not a speakeasy. By that, I mean it isn't faux-hidden behind a pair of nondescript doors that can only be reached via a great big shady lift. No, Barbet's right there, flatly proud, placed in the inner lip of Greater Kailash II's M Block Market, which is currently in the throes of an intense, competitive popularity.The unselfconscious location's a relief, really, and a bit of a surprise, given that inside, Barbet feels much more like a speakeasy than any of the other bars that have mushroomed with greasy ease across south Delhi. It's small, but not too small (38 seats). Dimly lit, but not in the infuriating way that makes you want to pull out your phone torch to squint at the menu. The speaker spouts 80s oldies, but not all of them are bangers. It's good to know there's yet some appreciation for deep cuts in this city. When they launched, publications went wild waxing lyrical about the pahadi inspiration behind the menu. I read it all, and I'd come here to sample it, but to tell you god's honest truth, the drink that's caught my lascivious attention is titled Tickle My Pickle. Servers are hovering. My order's taken immediately. The cocktail arrives glisteningly, gaudily...red. When they said pickle, did they mean kaanji? A sip later and my fears are assuaged. There is, indeed, some carroty fermented concoction hiding amid all the blueberry and gin. Consider my pickle tickled. I knock back a couple of those and move – mistakenly – onto something called Cherry On Top, decanted into a very similar glass to Tickle My Pickle, which I'd ordered a third repeat of. This isn't what I said I wanted, I cry to the server, who appears instantly, but I take a sip anyway. It's darkly fruity, intermingled with a not altogether unpleasant flavour of coffee and herby gin. I wave away the server and keep drinking. But I get the Tickle My Pickle again afterward. Such is the loyalty the unobtrusive drink has inspired. I have forgotten, as I tend to, the concept and possibility of bar snacks while getting steadily drunk. My drinking mates haven't, and thus sits a Mrs Barbet Chicken atop the table – a spicy-ish tikka offset by lusciously glossy burrata, and an Indianesque version of chimichurri. One experimental chap has gone and ordered the Bar-Brat Naga pork sausage, which is served with a bamboo-shoot ice-cream. It's surprisingly quite nice. The staff, as I noted earlier, is wildly enthusiastic about getting the clientele drunk. Shots have been suggested twice. The third time, they lure us with a '1+1, madam' offer that simply cannot be turned down. One stubborn fellow in the group has said he will only stick to whiskey, and so the server comes towards us grimly, bearing a platter of amber-coloured shots so large I feel the faint burgeoning of an unwanted nausea. But they go down smoothly enough – they've been served in darling little half-glasses stacked one on top of another. One bears the whiskey and the other the – wait for it – pickley chaser. Not...quite a pickleback. But close enough. It is nearing closing time and we have stayed put. A shining sign. The music is sounding like I want to dance. But I'm afraid we're close to overstaying our welcome. We are politely, charmingly ushered out after being fed an on-the-house soft-serve (it's delicious) and paying a bill that I will only inspect tomorrow, once the hangover clears. It was a good night. The vibe: Friendly. Raucous. Expensively so.  The drink: Cheeky, inventive. Won’t let you down.  The food: Surprisingly hearty bar snacks with interesting flavour profiles.   

‘Delhi, fuck your picantes’ is what Aditya Mohan has just said to me after smoking three cigarettes in a row on the terrace of his bar. We’re both several drinks down. The smoke he’s blown away is still lingering in the air. I break into giggles. I mean, he’s right. Every bar in the city’s doing a riff on the picante. Cleverly disguised behind a fancy name, sure, but a picante all the same.  Well. Every bar except Aditya’s. Truth be told, I came into Refuge highly skeptical. It’s a big bad world of themed bar menus out there. Nobody minds a bit of fun, but someone’s got to draw the line when what could’ve been a one-page menu morphs into a hardbound affair describing the history (and in some cases, geography) behind cocktails that are, unfortunately, not half as impressive as the literature they come with.  Is Refuge any different? There’s an elaborately themed bar menu here too, it’s true. This one has my eyebrows raised, though: modeled on major mass migrations in history, and that’s putting it politely. One page bears drinks inspired by the Atlantic slave trade. Another by Partition. And yet another by the European colonisation of the Americas. It’s jarring any way you look at it, whether you’re woke or not. I, incidentally, am woke. And I’m a little horrified.  Let’s face it, though. No amount of horror is going to put me off my drinks and dinner, and admittedly, the space itself, perched high above the bustle of Greater Kailash II market, is rather lovely. The 43-foot bar that commands the room is overshadowed only by one of the largest collections of booze in the city, with about 250 bottles on display, including a 100-year-old bottle of cognac. There’s some interesting metalwork going on in a corner and one of the paintings, of Heath Ledger’s Joker, has been painted by Aditya himself. A man of all trades, it seems, and master of many: a restaurateur, interior designer and chef, Aditya’s a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in London, with experience working alongside Michelin-level chefs in the UK.  Before we get down to ordering, I ask Aditya what bold thought was behind the provocative menu. He’s mildly taken aback. It was never about referencing something as heavy as that, he says.  ‘The drinks are definitely not themed on the trauma of refugee movements,’ he says, mildly aghast. ‘For me, the word refugee really speaks to the reality of Delhi. Most people here have come from someplace else and this city wouldn’t be this city without what they’ve brought with them. The menu’s just building on the idea of how large-scale movement of people across places and cultures ultimately shapes what ends up on your plate or in your glass.’  And the bar is, of course, intended as a refuge. And titled thus. I’m surprised by how sincere it sounds. But the proof will ultimately always be in the pudding, and god, once the pudding has been devoured, I’m forced to admit that Aditya’s managed to wipe my entire slate of gripes clean. That’s just how bloody good Refuge is. The menu may be outrageous, but when the drinks arrive, I’m able to chalk it down to a wild burst of creativity over a need to scandalise. The drinks  As we make our way down the drinks menu, cautiously and then raucously, one thing, at least, is pretty clear: there has been tremendous care and effort expended into each one of these items. Aditya’s got a story behind every one of these drinks – a real story that lasts at least ten minutes each time. Not a glib PR dump either.  The reason is his own expertise, of course, and his insistence on making all syrups in-house, but also the fact that the bar turns into a mad lab after hours, with all bartenders welcome to participate. Several of the drinks we try are off-menu or seasonal menu experiments, and surprisingly, they’re the best ones.  But we’ve got to start with the main drinks menu. Rift Valley’s inspired by the ‘first great migration’ out of Africa. Faux kola nut butter, bourbon, nutmeg bitters, caffeine vermouth. Kola nut butter, incidentally, is derived from a tree native to West Africa. So Aditya’s really not playing around here. The drink’s good: nutty and unexpectedly umami.  Gullah Breeze (tequila, maple, pineapple tepache, prickly pear treacle) is from the Atlantic Slave Trade page, referencing ingredients from both the African and North American continents. Well balanced. Not overly fruity.  The gin-based, clarified Iberian’s a standout. My first traitorish thought’s ‘wow, that’s the best Bloody Mary I’ve had’, but in truth, it’s nothing like a true Bloody Mary; it’d put one to shame. There’s a hint of that elusive umaminess of tomato with none of the overwhelming acidity found in tomato juice. The reason is that there’s no tomato juice here at all – it’s a ‘tomato water’ made in the kitchen.  Vanishing Village (goji berry cognac, oolong tea, peach and ginger cordial) on the Chinese urban-to-rural migration part of the menu is unique: it can be served hot or cold, depending on if you find yourself at the bar with a sore throat.  Hands down the best drink on the menu is the Nacho. An off-menu wonder. A drink that I’d personally come back for again and again. D’you know that sensation of biting into a crisp fresh nacho slathered in salsa? The Nacho’s nailed that bite in a sip. It’s sort of like how Violet Beauregarde must’ve felt after swallowing an entire meal off of one stick of gum inside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. It’s one of the best cocktails I’ve probably ever had. By the end of the meal, Aditya looks in equal parts pleased and fed up by how many compliments I’ve paid the drink.   The food The food menu’s uncluttered, but not overlooked. Small plates, sharing plates, and dessert. So neither a bar snack situation nor a full blown main course affair. Satiates both the nibblers and the fellows who like to soak up the booze with carbs.  The Refuge 65 is NOT a chicken 65, despite what the name suggests. ‘Baby, that’d offend three classes of people down south,’ Aditya drawls. ‘That’s not what we’re serving.’ What they’re actually serving is a chicken katsu crumbed to perfection paired with a gunpowder aioli. Made for easy snacking.  Avocado Crossing’s a sublime rendition of an avocado toast with freshly whipped guac dolloped onto sheets of filo pastry. No cardboardy sourdough that makes your table rattle when you cut into it here.  Ashes to Cream is a marvellous, nifty little dish. It’s essentially a chicken malai tikka, except it arrives on your table as a cloud of foam produced from a nitrous oxide charger, served with crackers and crostinis. It disintegrates in my mouth in seconds.  The Only Pasta, titled so because it’s the only pasta on the menu, is maybe some of the best pasta I’ve eaten in town. Fat rigatoni, cooked al dente, in a manchego and mustard emulsion, which can be (and should be) ordered with a portion of imported smoked duck. Simply divine.  It’s best to cap the gourmandising with a little more gluttony: the tiramisu – Aditya’s secret recipe. Again, one of the best ones I’ve had in town. I ask for the recipe and he gives it to me freely. ‘You want my recipe? Take it. But you’ll never, ever be able to replicate the way I make it,’ he says with a wink. Fair enough. Should you go? Is Refuge a gimmicky bar? Nope. I don’t think so. There’s zero pretentiousness here. Menus can be as elaborate as they want, and I’ll forgive the theatrics if the drinks taste good, and luckily, here they do. In fact, both the cocktails and food knock a lot of slick Delhi haunts out of the park. There’s an uncommon passion behind operations here, from the sourcing of ingredients to the balancing of flavours, and it’s worth every pretty penny.  I’d recommend this bar to fans of well-mixed drinks, good food, and pared back interiors. It’s  not necessarily the most bawdy of bars so don’t expect loud music or a packed floor. Much more a quiet, sophisticated vibe. A chat with the bartender. Maybe even one with Aditya if he’s around.  Time Out tip: Not only does Refuge have a massive terrace with a fantastic view of the Greater Kailash II market, but it also has a space on the floor below the main bar, which can be rented out for private parties.  (With inputs from Anirudh Suresan) Price for two: ₹2,500 for a round of drinks for two Timings: 5pm-1am. Daily.  Address: M-25, Third Floor, M Block Market, Greater Kailash II, New Delhi, Delhi 110048

Nihari on toast sounds like the sort of brilliant midnight snack that could easily be born in a college dorm in Agra. At Room 304, it’s this spirit of youthful improvisation of three college buddies – Sachin, Himkar and Kabir – that runs through the menu. The drinks and food lean into lived-in moments: there are memories here of tequila without mixers, rescued by the city’s trusted chaat stalls and their tangy gol gappa pani.  It’s mostly rooted in a time when these guys inhabited – you guessed it – Room 304, during their undergraduate years in Agra. Nostalgic, yes, and slightly chaotic. The first clue that this place doesn’t take itself too seriously arrives before you even walk in. Step out of the elevator and you’re faced with five identical doors, all marked 304. Naturally, everyone pauses for a second, wondering if this is a bar or the beginning of an escape room. I’ll avoid spoilers, but once you figure out the correct entrance, the rest of the evening unfolds like a charming college memory – with better drinks. Barely 30 people can fit in here, and that’s intentional. While we waited for our table, resident DJ Ananya, spinning retro vinyl, got into a chat with us the way someone hosts friends at home, rather than customers at a bar.  The idea for Room 304 apparently solidified after the founders visited a listening room in Bengaluru, so music here matters too. One particularly loud group on the evening when we were there nearly entirely derailed the vibe with an aggressive game of Heads Up, and it’s to Room 304’s credit that the bar wasn’t overshadowed. Thursdays lean rock, Sundays retro, Tuesdays disco, and there are plans for vinyl workshops where enthusiasts can bring their own records or simply learn how turntables work.  As we settle on our bar stools, it’s fun to flip through the menu. Every dish and cocktail has a backstory – mentors, relatives, drunken experiments, hostel food hacks – and Kabir, the man behind much of the food program, narrates them with the enthusiasm of someone who holds these memories like they’re gold. His aunt’s khakra inspired a dish. Hemkar’s mentor with a hard exterior inspired a Negroni riff. And Sachin is the mad scientist playing with tinctures and tipple to create the final offerings, each with a ‘heart, brain and soul’, as described in the menu. The food and drinks We start with a cocktail called Sadar Bazaar, which the menu cheekily describes as ‘acidity, but refined’; this is the aforementioned tequila meets gol gappa pani in the most sophisticated way possible. Tamarind cordial, raw mango, chilli-ginger tincture and clarified gol gappa water become a spicy, tangy cocktail that tastes like Delhi street food cleaned up nicely for a night out. Bonus points for the tamarind foam that refuses to disappear before your third sip. RDX, a boozy Negroni-style cocktail inspired by one of their mentors, apparently known for not being particularly soft. Made with Campari, bourbon washed in black garlic parmesan butter, house-made vermouth and oxidised wine concentrate, it sounds complicated on paper but works beautifully – bitter, citrusy, but smooth. The food follows a similar philosophy: Nihari on toast sounds exactly like something hungry college kids would invent at 2 am with limited resources, but here, it’s oomphed up with unabashed confidence. It arrives topped with crispy onions and a squeeze of chilli lime. The cold baingan chokha with khakra works as their version of chips and dip – smoky, chilled, textured and sharp with mustard oil. Then comes the magical galauti; I bet you’d never guess that this one’s entirely vegetarian. And if I told you the vegetables, there are even more chances of you not believing me – it was a bit hard for me to trust Kabir, the story teller, when he laughed and said that this galauti is made of lauki, tori and yam! It’s rich, soft, deeply spiced and probably one of the smartest things on the menu. Japanese dahi puri, meanwhile, mostly borrows wasabi for dramatic effect and can safely be skipped if your table space is limited. Chef Rajeev’s fried chicken curry, however, deserves your full attention. Rustic fried chicken pieces swimming in a velvety curry with sweet korma-like notes, mopped up with buttered pao. The rest of the menu leans into this same chaotic-good energy: dal makhni nachos, guacamole sev puri, hari mirch mac and cheese. Underneath all the seemingly gimmicky combinations is genuine affection for Indian flavours and memories.  Room 304 is a refreshing spot on Delhi’s sometimes overly slick bar scene. In the age of copy-paste cocktail bars with identical menus, this place feels personal. There are no dramatic house rules and no intimidating door policy. Apart from booking ahead and remembering they’re shut Mondays, the philosophy is essentially come-as-you-are. Time Out tip: Ask for a seat at the bar or near the DJ console.  Reservations: Mandatory. Reserve your seats via @drinksat304 on Instagram. Address: Room 304 prefers to stay hidden somewhere deep inside Greater Kailash I market. You'll have to contact them directly to figure out how to get there.

Sidecar has consistently made it to best bars of Asia lists, and there are several reasons why. We’re not gonna stick to those. Instead, bear with the ragged synapses of my brain that have been built up over my several good times here, because there’s much more to this M Block royalty than technical craft. The music I'm not being hyperbolic when I say they play better music than most bars in Delhi. And I know that sounds like a thing one says, but stay with me. Most bars treat music like a texture, something filling the silence. Some places get too precious about it, going full coffee-shop jazz. But at Sidecar, they’re doing something right.  Show up at 5.30, and you're in slow jazz territory. Not dirge-y, more like patient, setting you up. As the evening pulls in, the pace picks up, and you don't notice it happening. By 11, they have raging blues going, but it never overpowers conversation. Usually American blues and jazz from until the 90s… I don't think I've ever heard anything beyond that. They've got this absurdly extensive playlist, so repeat visits don't mean repeat songs.  The cocktails The menu keeps changing (barring some classics), mind you, but it's always done with a (not overdone) concept in mind. I tried rifling through Google to jog my memory about their latest ones, but I think it’s best I left it to the honest bits. There was this Authors menu early on: drinks supposedly favored by Philip Larkin, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, that sort of thing. (The Mark Twain drink was ported, almost aggressively.) Then came a much-adored Dear Delhi menu, which was actually just exploring the drinking traditions of the city itself.  I won't pretend to remember all of them because truth be told, the menu's deep enough that you could go a dozen times and keep finding things. Get a friend who isn’t paralysed by decisions, please. A few drinks of the past have stuck with me so far. The Cilantro is something I think about when I'm not at Sidecar. Bright green pudina chutney (which I happen to otherwise despise) in alcohol, improbably glorious. Nutty Soda is a gin-and-peach situation with some nut thing happening that keeps you guessing. I don’t have it in me to be a misanthrope about the crowd-favourite Potter’s Touch, because it really is worth the hype. From the classics, also: Ceylon, which ambitiously combines smoky vodka, miso coconut liqueur, cold brew and truffle, or the Myrtle, a mix of St Remy VSOP, myrtle leaf cordial, and lime. Or the cute sticker-adorned Enchanté. The food I'm going to level with you. Sidecar is not where you go to eat. They're reworking their kitchen constantly (ramen, fried rice, all of that) and it's competent, but food is just the thing you do while you're drinking here. That said, their pork belly is some of Delhi’s best. Fatty, crisp-skinned…which carries over to the jerk chicken too. There are also these super bloody good masala peanuts, sweet and spicy, that they aggressively guard the recipe to.  I also want to mention the winter menu. (Most bars stick to seasonal-izing just their cocktails.) Everything becomes thicker, richer, warmer. There's this white pork gravy situation that a friend had once and has been trying to find again. I've basically memorised what it looks like from his words because we need to know what it's called next time we go. Ask the people at the bar and they'll track anything down for you.  Where to drink: the terrace and the bar counter By late evening, Sidecar’s rooftop is a parallel party. People bring speakers, guitars. Someone I don't know the official title of – the owner's friend? A very committed regular? – sometimes shows up with a speaker and offers the terrace his vinyl collection. There are singalongs, and dancing, all on that tiny rooftop. And any Sidecar regular knows you’re bound to get into some whacked conversation there. It's intimate and spontaneous, a rare feeling for a cocktail bar. They also have live bands sometimes. I'll be honest, I haven't been impressed by the ones I’ve seen. But that's fine, not really the point. The place to perch your bags at first though has got to be the bar counter. There are bars where you sit at the counter and it feels like you're waiting for a real table… not here. Eight bartenders could move around in that counter without elbowing each other, which matters because they do international bartender exchanges. Some nights, the counter becomes actual theatre, with flair and flame. But that’s not why you sit. The counter is a privilege. You chat with the bartenders, and as you get progressively drunker, you see exactly why the tables should be an afterthought.

Depot48 is proof that Thursday nights in Delhi don’t have to be boring. If you like your nights loud, buzzing, and unapologetically queer, this one should be on your radar. They’ve also become quite well-known for platforming independent music and other fun events. There are multiple seating options. On the second floor, things are intimate: karaoke nights, screenings, drag shows, and bar seating for people who like to spend time alone while sipping away their mid-week blues. Step onto the terrace, though, and all restraint disappears. On a Thursday evening, it’s packed shoulder-to-shoulder with unmatched energy and banger songs to keep your feet tapping. Plus, a gender-neutral bathroom that feels normal and not performative.  The owner recommended his favourites to us, and we obliged. The crispy chicken bao is soft bread hugging a fried chicken chunk, loaded with sriracha mayo and fresh veggie crunch – and comfort food always works, after all. The steamed chicken momo came juicy and meaty. In Delhi, one generally steers clear of momos in bars… not here. You blink, the plate’s gone. We also tried some fries and hummus and pita chilli – both decent, but nothing out of the ordinary. Ask us again when we’re several pints down though. The real star is the Monicatini. It is a vodka-based drink that is spicy and sour. Spiced with green chilli and a candied ginger piece, this is a perfect accompaniment to the food and a perfect nudge to the dance floor. There are many other wonderful drinks to choose from, like the Banging Beagle and the Depot Smash.