This is the week in which we see Monkey Bar close. On this website, you’d have noticed, we look at events, trends and developments that impact the restaurant industry and initiate a conversation, hoping to come upon some useful lessons in the process.
This isn’t one of those efforts. For the shutting down of this pioneering enterprise leaves me feeling dispirited and without any answers. I ask why things have come to such a pass, why Monkey Bar, which brought to Bangalore an entirely new style of eating out and freshness to the bar scene, has had to shut down.
It’s Monkey Bar that introduced us to the gastropub. It married a strong food culture with a great drinking destination, something that had not been done to this degree of refinement before. I recall my excitement as I navigated the menu, packed with dishes that were at once familiar, new and exciting. There was the Galouti Killer Kebab and Sorpotel Jam Pot. While restaurants until that point had been serving dishes with no particular provenance, here was a menu that celebrated regional and local dishes — — Naga Pork and Thelawala Mutton Seekh — and even the recipes of home cooks, serving Chandraji’s Mutton Curry and Aunty Vinnie’s Berry Pulao. And there were the cocktails — I drank more than a few Mangaas and Copper Monkeys here — coming in jam jars and lotas.
The table settings were casual and quirky. The mismatched cutlery would be copied as would the inspired menu. As a product offering it ticked all the boxes and won fans instantly. As a business idea, it was well thought out and executed. Chef Manu Chandra, who turned restaurant entrepreneur with this opening, had said, ‘There were the high-end, expensive places and the other eat-and-scoot ones which didn’t encourage customers to linger; nothing in-between. It’s into that space that Monkey Bar falls, exciting customers with its cool, never pretentious attitude, its quirky dishes and signature cocktails.’
Monkey Bar also proved you can serve excellent food at an affordable price so it becomes attractive to a lot more people. Chef Manu had also said, ‘This allows regulars to visit, say, twice a week, rather than only on special occasions.’ Because of the food and drinks and the great vibe, Monkey Bar attracted not just the price-conscious customer, but people from all echelons who loved this unbuttoned experience.
For food writers, a place that breaks the template and introduces new concepts is cause for celebration, as they search for adjectives and feel the high of telling people about it. I wrote about one of the early breakfast menus at Monkey Bar: ‘Monkey Bar’s breakfast, like the rest of its menu, is fun and irreverent, careening across cuisines as it picks up favourites and serves them with a twist. So, there’s Chilli Cheese Vada Pav, Pandi and Pita which combines the Coorg special with pita bread, Mr Miyagi’s Okonomiyaki, a Japanese-style cabbage pancake topped with pork belly and other delicious things, Pizza Omelette, Akuri and, crowning it all, the Bloody Breakfast, which is a jumbo Bloody Mary accompanied by skewers of bacon-wrapped sausage, mushrooms, chicken and potato skins. That should cure Friday night hangovers and put you in good spirits, too.
Memories, memories. And how do you not love and miss a place that puts Old Monk in its Nutella cake? What, then, happened here? Did the ban on music in Indiranagar kill Monkey Bar? Do even the best bars come with an expiry date? Whatever the answers are, it does not bode well for Bangalore’s food and beverage business.
