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Barely five minutes away from the Bandra Kurla Complex, the new home for Indian big business, the Grand Hyatt is everything Mumbai’s other Hyatt is not. For starters it’s huge, based on its own 10-acre plot, which in Mumbai is an entire universe! The awe-inspiring lobby exhibits some of the best contemporary Indian art. Across Mumbai, the hotel is rapidly becoming known as a landmark. Townies regularly make the pilgrimage (over an hour in traffic) to the Italian restaurant, Celini, for the best thin-crust pizzas in the city, washed down with a cold coffee milkshake that inspires more awe than the lobby. The M Bar and grill also has outstanding continental food and a superb Sunday brunch. The hotel boasts a hightech convention centre that is almost always fully booked. Unfortunately, the neighbourhood of Kalina is really quite beat up and grungy, so unless you have work in the Western Suburbs or your convention is hosted in the hotel, there is little reason to stay here.
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What the Hyatt lacks in personality—it looks like any other run-of-the-mill international hotel—it can often make up in price, especially to corporate customers. Although it is an uninspired competitor to the Maratha and the Leela, it is still a good hotel that lives up to the Hyatt group’s international standards.
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Lower Parel used to be the heart of the now defunct textile industry and is currently experiencing an urban revival, as old mills are spruced up and converted into shopping malls and apartment complexes. The advertising industry, TV media and garment traders were the first businesses to move in, and the ITC Grand Central caters primarily to them. The hotel boasts every facility needed for a business traveller, except perhaps its location—it’s placed right between the financial poles of Nariman Point to the south and Bandra Kurla Complex to the north. Still, it’s unique style might just spark an architectural renaissance in this run-down precinct.
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The Grand Maratha is the grandest of the hotels serving the international airport area. It’s also one of the few five-stars to offer an entire range of Indian cuisine. Each of its restaurants is a gem. Dum Pukht showcases dishes slow-cooked in traditional sealed pots, or deghs, a culinary tradition with a 200-year-old history. Peshawari is an elegant restaurant that dishes up kebabs and tandoori fare from the north-western and frontier provinces. And Dakshin specialises in the fresh exotic flavours of the Malabar coast and southern India.
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