Alternative Investments

How Cool Chef Cafe is fast turning into a hub for Mumbai's indie community.

The soundproof performance room at Cool Chef Cafe. Photo: Vikas Munipalle.

A salsa night, an indie rock gig, a dubstep night and a shopping bazaar. That’s a brief list of the events that will take place at Worli venue Cool Chef Café this week. Last week, it hosted a breakdancing night, a tango workshop and an art exhibition. If it all reads similar to the kind of stuff that went down at erstwhile Bandra bar Zenzi, you wouldn’t be too off the mark. Over the last six months, Cool Chef Café may not have grown into the new home of Bandra hipsters but it does seem to have taken over the now-shuttered suburban institution’s role as our city’s resident incubator of upcoming alternative and indie talent.

Much like Zenzi, Cool Chef Café hosts a different night almost every day of the week, giving the city’s DJs, dancers and party organisers a new platform on which to hone and showcase their skills. And though like Zenzi, Cool Chef Café recently had a run-in with locals, the owners say that there’s little chance of it shutting down anytime soon. Because unlike Zenzi, which was located in a residential building, Cool Chef Café is run out of a sprawling ancestral bungalow that’s solely occupied by the owners, the Thadani family. “When my brother came back [after finishing his hotel management course] from Switzerland in 2010, we realised we wouldn’t have a problem in getting the licences [to open a restaurant],” said Tarun Thadani, who programs the events at Cool Chef while his brother, chef Kaviraj looks after the F&B.

Though Cool Chef Café opened in Worli in July 2010—it had started as a take-away joint called Cool Chef in Warden Road in May that year—the Thadanis began hosting performances regularly only in August 2011, after they got all their alcohol licences in place. Their first major event, a gig by electronica trio Bay Beat Collective showed the proprietors they could pack in the place with over a hundred people on a DJ night. It made them realise that “a lot of people in Bombay are looking for another venue to give them alternative kinds of music”, said Tarun Thadani.

Since then, they’ve tied up with everyone from LGBT party organisers Salvation Star (who regularly host their “Khush Nights” there), to the folks behind Grime Riot Disco. An “alternative party” co-organised by singer/actress Monica Dogra, Grime Riot Disco seems to have found a semi-permanent home at Cool Chef Café. It was during the second Grime Riot Disco at Cool Chef Café, on November 12, 2011, that the venue was forcibly shut down by a local corporator. After briefly scaling down the number of events they hosted, on December 10, Cool Chef Café returned with a new soundproof performance space and a smoking section. The first gig at the 150-capacity room was fittingly, another edition of Grime Riot Disco.

“Of course, we considered shifting,” said Dogra when we asked what made her come back. “But, generally in Bombay, there is a dearth of good venues for good-old-fashioned fun. The GRD team believes in stripping partying of all the acquired pretension that Bombay nightlife seems to be addicted to. When we checked out the new soundproofed room, we felt the Cool Chef Cafe team was really going to great lengths to establish a good party. So it made sense to try again.”

Dogra’s description of Cool Chef Café as a “party house” was echoed by almost everyone we interviewed for this story, from Bay Beat Collective’s Sohail Arora to PR professional Natasha Malhotra who, along with curator Diana Campbell and artist Apna Thacker, organises what Tarun Thadani called their most popular event so far, the “’90s party” night. “I believe the ‘underground’ element of Cool Chef Cafe is its biggest draw,” said Malhotra who described Cool Chef Café as “part rambling bungalow, part Ghetto, part Goan shack”.

The Ghetto reference probably comes from the graffiti in the bar area, which was drawn by Jai Ranjit of The Wall Project. It’s one of the many seemingly incongruent elements of Cool Chef Café, where some of the decorative features are remnants of the home décor and handicrafts store Silkworks that Tarun and Kaviraj’s parents ran in the same premises from 1988 to 2010 (their father, Prakash Thadani is one of the co-organisers of the Mumbai leg of the Jazz Ustav festival). The art work reflects the we’ll-try-anything-if-it-sounds-interesting attitude of the owners. Recently, when NH7 hosted Singapore-based graffiti artist Jaba in Mumbai they approached Cool Chef Café to have one of their exterior walls painted by him. You can see the results here.

Dogra and Malhotra both see the location as an advantage—it’s smack dab in the middle of South Mumbai and Bandra yet it’s unlikely you will be able to find it if you didn’t know about it. “People are curious about off-the-beaten path places,” said Malhotra. It’s almost like a farmhouse, in the centre of the city. The oft-mentioned house party vibe is also unlike that of Blue Frog or Hard Rock Café “both of which can be slightly intimidating for younger kids to go to at times”, said Rishu Singh, who will hold the first major indie rock night at the venue this Thursday.

That the Thadanis don’t have to pay rent removes a big chunk from their overhead expenses and enables them to keep the gate charges competitive. The entry fee, if any, for most events is around the Rs200 range. Much of the money comes from additional bar sales on performance nights, and in that respect, Cool Chef Café is still affordable but only relatively so. The night we went by, only 500ml cans of Budweiser were available if you wanted beer, and they cost Rs300 a pop.

But whether it’s the kids or the hipsters who come, the core idea remains the same—presenting niche acts that work best in a relaxed, intimate setting. It’s Zenzi without the minimalist aesthetic but with the same indie sensibility, one that many promoters and artists are hoping will help keep Cool Chef Cafe around longer than its philosophical predecessor. “It’s got a lot of potential,” said Arora who believes that the owners, neither of whom come from an event management background (Tarun Thadani used to run a T-shirt company), are in a “trial and error phase”. It might just be wise for them, he said, to let “good local promoters take over certain nights”. For now though, whether you’re a hip hop dancer or a dubstep DJ in need of a stage, Cool Chef Café is your first port of call.

To see the list of upcoming events at Cool Chef Cafe, visit the Facebook page.

Cool Chef Cafe

LocationThadani House
329/A Worli Village
First left after the Bandra-Worli Sea Link
Worli

Phone2430 1127

HoursDaily, noon to 1.30am

Websitewww.coolchefcafe.com