Housed in a 155-year-old arched shopfront on Horniman Circle, this cafe doesn’t just serve food, it resurrects memory. Walk through its stone arcades and into its maroon embrace, and suddenly, you’re not in present-day Bombay. The outside world is left at the door. Daylight filters gently through frosted glass and stained panels, just enough to remind you that time is passing. Inside the vintage restaurant, you are in a space that refuses the clinical perfection of modernity, choosing instead the soulful patina of time.
A Vintage Restaurant Was Redesigned To Bring Back The 20’s Mumbai Era | Dhool Design Studio
In the rush of Mumbai’s ever-changing skyline, we often forget that once, the city’s soul lived in its arches, its lime-washed walls, its stonework that bore the weight of centuries. The Fort district, with its grand arcades and Italianate facades, still whispers these stories—though drowned, more often than not, by glass towers and hurried footsteps. Cafe Nur rises here like a quiet act of remembrance.
Architecture itself dictated the mood. Two-feet-thick stone walls, hand-made brick arches, and ceilings that lift your gaze higher than most contemporary structures—this was the inheritance. Rather than an overwrite, the design listens.
Lime oxide in deep maroon traces the original arches, embracing their strength while leaving behind the artisans’ hand marks, imperfect and permanent. Each scar, each uneven finish becomes part of the narrative.
Warm light creates a play of shadows through different ornamented chandeliers— each one a century old, none resembling the other— they descend low from the lofty ceiling, scattering warm reflections across the space.
The glow softens the grandeur of the vintage restaurant, making the double-height volume feel intimate, almost like a sufi mehfil. A central brick arch, deep maroon in colour, makes a perfect focal point with a brass chandelier peeking out. It pulls you forward as if you’re entering a sanctum.
Every detail narrates a story. From the hand carved teakwood tables, to the stained glass windows, and the fragments of color catching the filtered daylight. While some arches frame the old tarnished windows, two of them turn themselves into a canvas hand-painted by Pankaj Dwivedi. The effect is both curated and spontaneous, as though history itself arranged the pieces.
This is not a space of perfection. It is a space of feeling. The walls carry memories, and the lights unfold a tale. The furniture, the decor, the people, each create an aura like the Sufi spirit that inspired it, Cafe Nur finds beauty in imperfection and poetry in layering.
To dine in this vintage restaurant is not simply to eat. It is to sit inside a time machine. To feel the echoes of Bombay’s history and the transcendence of Sufi thought. Suspended in a warm, dimly lit cocoon where food, architecture, and memory fold into one another.
You leave with more than a full stomach—you leave with the scent of patina and fragments of maroon still on your skin, with stories of lost architecture lingering in your mind. And like all who stumble upon something timeless, you leave already longing to return.
Fact File
Designed by: Dhool Design Studio
Project Type: Cafe Interior Design
Project Name: Cafe Nur
Location: Fort, Mumbai
Year Built: 2025
Duration of the project: 3 Months
Project Size: 500 Sq.ft
Principal Architects: Ar. Neethi Acharya & Ar. Huzefa Bandukwala
Team Design Credits: Nandini & Purva
Photograph Courtesy: Wabi-Sabi Studio by Janvi Thakkar
Products / Materials / Vendors: Finishes – IPS, Lime plaster, Red oxide / Wallcovering / Cladding – Maroon oxide / Lighting – Antique glass and crystal chandeliers and pendants / Doors and Partitions – Hand made Teak Wood and stained glass / Windows – Hand made teakwood with stained glass / Furniture –handcarved teak Wood and granite / Flooring – IPS / Paint – Asian Paints / Artefacts – Local vintage markets
Firm’s Website Link: Dhool Design Studio
The Firm’s Instagram Link: Dhool Design Studio
Firm’s Facebook Link: Dhool Design Studio
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