An Irani café in Mumbai is a time-travel ticket into the city that once was. Spread across hidden corners of the metropolis, these cafés stand as watchful witnesses to a bygone era, slathering nostalgia into buttery bun maska served with steaming milky chai.
By the time you sink into a bentwood chair at a red-and-white checkered table, a blackboard has already spelt out its eccentric rules: no lingering too long, no flirting with the cashier, no holding hands. Five senses come alive with the aroma of freshly baked bread mingling with over-brewed chai, the din of traffic and chatter punctuated by servers’ calls, and the sight of antique furniture inviting patrons to break bread with history.
Menus are indulgent yet comforting: oily omelettes, keema pav, berry pulav with zeresk (Iranian berries), juicy chicken cutlets, and Sali boti, washed down with raspberry soda. Take home brun (kadak) pav, khari biscuits, cakes, and puffs from the bakery.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, waves of Persian Zoroastrians and Shia immigrants fled drought-stricken Iran and landed in Bombay. Many took up corner shops, once avoided by Hindus who deemed them inauspicious, often at subsidised costs.
Terrazzo floors, bentwood chairs, mirrored counters, chalked blackboards, and the scent of pav and chai opened these cafés to all. They became civic living rooms where mill workers, students, poets, clerks, and shopkeepers gathered to escape the heat, read newspapers, share a quick bite, or hold conversations that rippled across class, religion, and language. The cafés even left their mark on Bollywood: from Anil Kapoor and Chunkey Pandey in Tezaab (1988) to Shah Rukh Khan plotting a heist in Happy New Year (2014) at Café Universal, they became symbols synonymous with the city.
“Irani cafés were small but powerful social institutions. Founded by Persian-Zoroastrians, they became civic living rooms, informal, inexpensive, and open to everyone. Clerks and clerics, students and shopkeepers, poets and bureaucrats met over chai and bun maska. Egalitarian in practice, Irani cafés helped knit together the city’s diverse social world: people of different religions, classes and linguistic backgrounds would share tables and conversations,” Historian and heritage educator Falak Chowdhary, who has conducted over 90 heritage walks across Mumbai, tells us. She documents Mumbai’s rich history to preserve untold stories for future generations through her writing, photography, and multimedia projects.
The Zoroastrian community held each other together, and they had the will to make it work. “It was survival instinct mingled with hard work back then. The founders got married, had children, and the fights started,” a café owner confides, on condition of anonymity. Today, many establishments are mired in legal and family disputes.
Over the years, some cafés have adapted with permit rooms and expansive menus; others have endured unchanged. Matcha and avo-toast trends don’t faze Farokh Shokri, owner of Kyani & Co Irani Café (1904) in Dhobi Talao: “Every decade is a new decade. Our café is around 120 years old, and the only thing we have changed is the menu. The interior and setup remain the same.”
“A new trend will not impact my business because I’m doing what nobody is doing. We represent a bygone era since the British rule, so people are curious to access that time capsule,” adds Shokri, who joined his father at the café in 1992 at the age of 31.
According to him, all the credit goes to loyal customers. “I use the best ingredients at the lowest possible price. But it’s the customers who keep the success story of Kyani going. Even as offices move, loyal clients return to relive the past, bringing family and children through the years.”
Chowdhary notes that these cafés act as anchors of memory in neighbourhoods rapidly transformed by high-rises and franchise culture. “Irani cafés remain relevant because they are more than food; they are social infrastructure.” In an era of curated coffee chains, they offer a style of sociability rarely reproduced: unhurried conversation, slow service, affordable comfort food, and a democratic mix of patrons.
Maintaining heritage structures is challenging, yet Shokri finds value in being part of the Bombay Heritage Walk. “It helps keep the space alive, bringing in new customers and tourists. Irani cafés deserve recognition as heritage sites.”
Regulatory shifts, like the Bombay High Court’s January directive to replace woodfire ovens with gas or electric alternatives, don’t faze him: “This transition is not an issue, as long as the taste of my pav doesn’t change,” Shokri says with a smile.
Still, the pressures are real. Rising rents, high operating costs, ageing proprietors, and the lure of more profitable ventures make survival difficult. “Rising rents and the high cost of running a low-margin, labour-intensive café make survival difficult. Modern chains offer different conveniences. Lastly, the older proprietors who embodied the cafés’ knowledge and ethos are ageing, while younger family members may prefer to sell or convert the business into something more profitable. All this compounded by regulatory and infrastructural hurdles and the city’s appetite for higher-value land use.”
Chowdhary lists examples where heritage venues have received a boost from external facilities. “In Lisbon, local and municipal partnerships have helped stabilise historic cafés or pastelarias as community assets. In Istanbul’s kahvehane culture, cultural programming and municipal recognition have kept tea-and-talk houses active. While Buenos Aires’ bars and neighbourhood bodegas have been designated as cultural landmarks, combined with business support has helped some survive,” says Chowdhary.
For Mumbai, she adds, these models are adaptable but must be sensitive to scale and local economics. “Municipal support should be targeted (not blanket), and revival must prioritise local community uses over commodified heritage tourism. Programs that combine heritage mapping and neighbourhood-led curation can work here,” she concludes.
Despite these challenges, Mumbai’s Irani cafés continue to feed the city a culture. From the late Britannia & Co owner Boman Irani Kohinoor expressing fondness for Britain’s Queen, to Bollywood actors holding meetings, Yazdani’s now-discontinued apple pie selling out by noon, or the mawa cakes and chicken puffs of B Merwan still feeding college students on a budget, these cafés remain culinary and social mainstays.
Over the years, offices have moved north to Bandra and Lower Parel, with high-rises and modern eateries squeezing into every available spot. The Irani Cafes stand as a testament, offering a vivid memory of the past. For Shokri, the café is more than business; it’s home. “When I come here, I feel a sense of ease watching the crowd come and go. It gives me confidence that we matter,” he says.
