There are mini fried idlis with lime-accented podi, the citrus lifting the snack from the simple to chef-quality.

What Rishiv has done is not just open a snazzy cocktail bar, but one with Manish Mehrotra’s food to raise the bar further. But I really wanted to do a young and contemporary cocktail bar,” says Rishiv Khattar, director of Old World Hospitality and restaurateur Rohit Khattar’s son, who had been studying and living in the US for the past dozen years.

“This is the first time we have attempted something like this, so it is a bit of a risk. At Comorin, at Two Horizon Centre in Gurugram, the feeling the space evokes in us and its drinks may be firmly international, but the food comes with solid Indian pedigree. I could be at any bar in Milan or London but for the food that will follow. There’s a twist to the classic negroni, I am told, and meanwhile, the home-made limoncello that finds its way to the table is near-perfect. The bartender is busy infusing botanicals into vodka via sous vide. There are cocktails sitting inside bottles, waiting to be shaken up with squat squares of monogrammed ice. There are comfortable high chairs and cosy “love seats” around a snazzy bar designed by Russell Sage, once the star of London Fashion Week (where he specialised in women’s fashion) but now in demand as an interior designer in London.

The look is sleek, open and international.

Raising the bar calibre press