Esquire India April Hotlist: New Restaurants And Bars Across India

Just when you think a city has hit peak bar, someone goes and opens a cocktail room in a 160-year-old haveli, or puts rasam in a whisky, or builds an entire hotel around the premise that checking in at the bar is, in fact, the correct way to arrive anywhere. This month's list spans Udaipur rooftops, Goa alleyways, a Churchgate cinema building, and a nine-seater basement in GK II that you can only visit on weekends if you were smart enough to book ahead.

India's hospitality industry has, collectively, decided that a good story is as important as a good drink — and in most cases this month, they've managed to deliver both.

New Restaurants And Bars Across India

Here’s where we’re eating and drinking this month.

RAJASTHAN

Dore, Udaipur

Dore, Udaipur

Pronounced dori — like thread — and every cocktail here pulls on one. Pranav Sharma (Manuscript, Bombay Daak) and Sagar Neve (Ekaa, KMC) have opened a rooftop bar on a restored haveli with City Palace and Lake Pichola views, and the bar menu reads like a Rajasthani archivist went all out: Sangri meets camel milk, there’s kachori-spiced whisky, and also hing in pisco. The Kuldhara cocktail is an ode to an abandoned village and Haldighati puts vetiver and chaitri roses into gin. Food-wise: you’ll find kharghosh ka kheema, tandoori bater, mirchi bada. It’s beautiful and really a must-visit.

Dupion, Jaipur

Dupion, Jaipur

Rajasthan really isn’t playing around with the names. This bar, named after Indian silk fabric, is all dark, moody, statement chandeliers, and intimate corners. The cocktail programme leans into the Silk Route with housemade infusions of teas, spices, florals and ferments. Food is more than just a supporting act: plum-glazed chicken wings, spicy salmon sushi, noir pistachio cloud. This place is a solid addition to Jaipur's increasingly interesting bar scene.

Paro, Jaipur

Upon entering, you’d probably think you’re inside a heritage museum: Paro is inside an 80-year-old colonial mansion on MI Road. You’ll find Makrana marble underfoot (yes, the same as Taj Mahal), and lime plastered walls finished by the descendants of those who worked on Hawa Mahal. And yet, there’s this airiness about it that makes you feel like you’re somewhere away from just the loop of heritage itself. The drinks are the point: here you’ll find rose-toned Shehar, kokum-spiced Ratnagiri Rhapsody, a theatrical gin and tonic with smoking rosemary. For food, you’ll find the Indian classics like dal bati bites and dosa onion rings.

PUNE

Izipizi Street, Pune

This is Pune's first Southeast Asian hawker-style "living street" — bringing together several hawker-style food options like sushi, dim sums, yakitoris, and Korean small plates under one roof. Multiple counters (Moto Moto Sushi, Black Bear Boba, Tama Goro Cafe) share space with a central kitchen doing soups, curries, and desserts. Cocktails by Arijit Bose are properly Asian-inflected — galangal picante, umeshu, coffee boba. Keith Menon designed it to feel like a street market; there's even a karaoke room, because of course there is.

BENGALURU

Tomo Kei, Bengaluru

I see why finding Nikkei cuisine inside a Whitefield hotel would make you hesitant, but chef Bobby T Recto’s menu really earns the detour. Here, you’ll find salmon tiradito with passionfruit leche, anticucho lamb chops, and jalapeño miso cod. The tableside moments add to the fun here: guests blend their own leche de tigre, and the chaufa rice gets finished with aromatic oils in front of you. The bar does agave-forward cocktails and a focused sake list.

GOA

The Passport Hotel, Assagaon, Goa

You check in at the bar! That's the whole vibe. Ashesh Sajnani's 27-room Assagaon property runs three distinct drinking spaces — Mini Bar (lobby-meets-watering-hole), Layover (rooftop, sunsets, cocktails that outlast them), and Jet Lag (spirit-focused, workshops, tastings). The Passport Program hands you a map of Goa's best bars to explore and stamp your way through. When you return to your room, a DIY cocktail kit is waiting. The attention to detail is amazing here.

Vaarta, Goa

Vaarta, Goa

A 160-year-old Goan home in Sangolda, original arches and aged floors intact, now doing interactive Indian street food. Live puchka counter, a barf ka gola cart wheeled to your table, chelo kebab, dalcha gosht, chicken roast kulcha. The cocktails are playful in the best way — masala chai martini, aam panna sour. The whole thing feels like a dinner party someone threw in their very beautiful ancestral home, which is basically the highest compliment in Goa.

MUMBAI

Flint, Mumbai

Rahul Akerkar is back! And this time he’s collaborating with Jaydeep Mukherjee to cook with live fire inside the NCPA complex. This is an all-day dining place, and trust me, there’s something for everyone here. Everything is grilled, charred, smoked, or flamed: crab cake Eggs Benny at breakfast, grilled papaya with flamed burrata, charred dukkah cauliflower, char-grilled lamb chops. Go for the black truffle butter spaghetti. Desserts lean into the bit with charred lemon tiramisu and smoked apple tarte tatin. The bacon-washed Bloody Mary and ambada leaf picante are already doing numbers at the bar.

Julien, Mumbai

This is ABNAH's delivery-first patisserie, currently doing a pop-up at Galeries Lafayette, and  it was apparently inspired by fashion. Chef Amit Jadhav (Jolie's, and stints at some of the world's better dessert kitchens) leads with petit gateaux, celebration cakes, and cookies that are deliberately lightly sweetened. The lineup includes a gluten-free chocolate cake, salted caramel brownie mousse, sour cherry mascarpone Chantilly. Also, you need to try the house tiramisu!

Rameshwaram Café, Mumbai

Bengaluru's beloved South Indian chain has finally landed at the Eros Cinema building in Churchgate (because there is no other place more well-fitted for this), and the ghee-soaked dosas have made the journey intact. The space is large, two levels, temple-style architecture with brass accents and Tanjore paintings. Counter seating downstairs for a quick hit of filter coffee and benne dosa; upstairs if you want to linger over bisi bele baath or gongura rice. Mumbai needed this, and now we finally have it.

DELHI-NCR

Kimikai Umami House, Gurgaon

This is an umami-forward Asian restaurant built around a fictional silk-route spice trader named Kimikai (who is, apparently, also an opium dealer in disguise, hence all the poppy motifs). The storytelling is a lot, but the food holds up: tomato carpaccio with ginger dressing, truffle edamame, black cod with citrus miso glaze, dan-dan glass noodles. The bar programme is in collaboration with Pass Code Hospitality and gets adventurous — whisky with pippali, kewra and wasabi; a Picante with sweet vermouth and orange bitters. The zero-proof menu is divided by time of day, which is a genuinely clever touch. Go for the cod, stay for the cocktails, file the backstory away.

Cavity at Barbet & Pals, Delhi

Nine seats, basement location in GK II, weekends only — and yes, you need to book. Jeet Rana, Chirag Pal, and chef Amninder Sandhu have built a nine-course cocktail-led tasting experience that uses GI-tagged Indian ingredients as its anchor: Malta oranges from Uttarakhand, Bhimkol bananas from Assam, Sundarban honey, Tripura Queen pineapple. A Tooyamalli Rice drink pairs clarified rasam with whisky and rice foam. The Guntur Chilli Chicken cocktail is exactly what it sounds like, and it works. Food mirrors the drinks — gunpowder idli, slow-braised kareli inspired by nihari, pumpkin blossom stuffed with prawn balchao. Three hours, measured pours, no filler. One of the more interesting things happening in Delhi right now.

Together, Delhi

A hidden bar down an alley in Vasant Vihar, built around Tokyo's listening cafe tradition — vinyls on the walls, jazz in the background, dim lighting, miso butter-washed scotch, wasabi-washed rum. The food is predictably tight: tempura, gyozas, sandos, Asian tacos, cold plates. There is reportedly a resident cat. At this point, Together is doing everything right for a certain kind of person who takes their listening bars seriously and their cocktails seriously and would also like a cat to walk past them while they're having both.