Inside BARE: A Mumbai Cocktail Bar That Doubles As An Art Gallery

Mumbai’s newest bar doesn’t look like a bar at all. In fact, it hides itself almost entirely behind a rotating gallery façade. Located in Worli’s Raheja Altimus, BARE Bombay opens with a curated collection of contemporary art, collectible design objects, and sculptural interventions before discovering the discreet door that leads into BARE. It’s a fitting introduction to a space that refuses conventional categorisation. BARE is a cocktail bar — but it is also an 11-seater Chef’s Table, an espresso bar by Boojee Café, and a culinary studio that operates as India’s first “collaborative kitchen”.

BARE is the brainchild of Eat Drink Design, founded by Pooja Raheja, whose practice has long blurred the line between food, design, and sensory storytelling. The studio’s first permanent space extends that ethos into a living, evolving venue where menus, décor, soundscapes, and art shift every three months. The idea here isn’t to chase novelty, but to embrace the creative process. “Evolving by design” becomes the venue’s core principle — one that mirrors how cultural consumption itself has changed in Indian cities.

For years, India’s art and culinary ecosystems existed in parallel, tied to formal venues and specialised audiences. Today, the boundaries have softened. Art appears not only in galleries but in cafés in Kochi, cocktail bars in Bangalore, hotel lobbies in Jaipur. It sits alongside sound design, mixology, plating, and spatial aesthetics. Cultural spaces no longer announce themselves with white walls and track lighting; they fold into nightlife, hospitality, and everyday life. Similary, culinary programmes show up in art festivals like the Serendipity Art Festival in Goa. BARE is part of this larger shift, presenting art as something to be encountered, absorbed, and lived with, the same as food and drinks, sustenance.

The interior design is minimalistic and tactile, exuding confidence, contrasting with the maximalist trends seen in many new openings. During the day, the space radiates warmth and muted tones, while at night it transforms into a moodier, almost theatrical atmosphere, thanks to a lighting programme that mirrors the service’s pace.

The heart of the venue is the Chef’s Table — a narrow 11-seater counter that brings guests inches away from the kitchen. For its opening chapter, Resident Executive Chef Aman Sibgal has crafted a concept-agnostic menu defined by globally-inspired small plates and a compact list of mains. It’s less about cuisine and more about craft: flavour-forward, technically sharp, and improvisational. Dessert comes from acclaimed pastry chef Prateek Bhaktiani, who reshapes timeless classics into contemporary forms without losing their emotional warmth.

The collaborative spirit extends to drinks. The espresso bar is run by Rajdeep Singh’s Boojee Café, known for his precision-driven roasting and playful approach to coffee. His signature cocktails and zero-proof drinks sit at the intersection of specialty coffee and mixology — another blurring of boundaries, invitating guests to rethink familiar formats.

At launch, BARE’s gallery façade features a curatorial partnership with A&H Colab, the art and design consultancy founded by Amrita Kilachand and Hina Oomer Ahmed. Their exhibitions, which juxtapose emerging and established creators, complete the loop between food, art, and design — three disciplines that increasingly coexist in the same urban spaces in India.

Follow @bare.bombay to learn more and book a table.

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