Rave Dines: Batliwala & Co.

A special kind of magic occurs when a city within a city opens its doors: a restaurant becomes more than just a place to dine; it becomes a portal. Stepping inside, you leave behind Dubai and find yourself transported to another time and place—like a different decade of Bombay—while the bustling city outside, with its cranes, glass towers, and constant motion, temporarily comes to a halt during your meal.

Some restaurants simply feed you, while others take you on a journey. Batliwala & Co. belongs to the latter group—leading you to a city you may have never visited but somehow already feel familiar with.

The Address

Batliwala & Co. is located within the DoubleTree by Hilton in Business Bay, Bay Square, nestled behind the modern architecture of Business Bay's canal-side towers. As you enter from the street, you're greeted by the sight of the Burj Khalifa, Dubai's most dominant visual landmark. This creates an undeniably surreal contrast. It's this very tension, between the magnificence of your surroundings and the simplicity of the dishes served, that makes Batliwala subtly remarkable.

The Space

Before entering the dining room, Batliwala & Co. immediately captures your attention. The entrance mimics a traditional Irani provision shop, with shelves stocked with jars, pantry essentials, and small curiosities, all available for you to pick up. This thoughtful detail reminds visitors that these cafés started not as restaurants but as neighborhood stores where people gathered, traded, and lingered. The sign at the door reflects this spirit: come as you are, stay as long as you like.

The dining room itself is a world of its own. Vintage furnishings are harmoniously placed alongside framed black-and-white photographs, old radios, a gramophone, a rocking chair, faded tiffin boxes, retro sewing machines, film rolls, and calendar pages. Every corner offers something worth a second glance. This space wasn't styled; it was remembered. It exudes a warmth that takes effort to create yet appears completely effortless, which is perhaps the highest compliment one can give to any room.

There's balcony-style seating with views of the iconic Burj Khalifa and, beyond that, the shimmering geometry of the city. It embodies the easy, lived-in beauty of a place that simply exists well.

The Meal

The menu reads like a tour through Bombay's most loved tables. You begin where every proper Irani café experience should begin: with chai and bun maska jam. The bun is soft and butter-slicked, the Irani chai is strong with saffron infused, and together they do exactly what comfort food is supposed to do. From there, the Juhu Beach Pani Puri arrives as a refreshing, tangy Bombay street-style opener that disappears almost before you've had a chance to appreciate it. The keema pao is the signature of the house — pillowy, freshly-baked bread alongside mince preparation that is boldly spiced without being violent about it.

The dhansak deserves its own moment of attention. A slow-cooked harmony of meat and lentils, served with caramelised rice and kachumber salad, this is the dish that defines the Parsi table. The Britannia’s Berry Pulao is fragrant, jewelled with berries and nuts, and achieves that balance of sweet and savoury that Parsi cooking has always understood better than almost any other cuisine on earth.

For dessert, the mawa cake is dense, dense sponge enriched with milk solids, and perfumed with cardamom — the kind of thing you didn't know you needed until it was in front of you. The lagan nu custard, a Parsi wedding sweet, is a silky baked custard with nutmeg, cardamom and caramelised sugar. It closes the meal the way any good story should close: with warmth and a desire to start again from the beginning. Definitely try the Pallonji' soda — the original Bombay raspberry drink, appearing here alongside a proudly nostalgic Thums Up. Some choices are statements.

History on the Plate

Batliwala & Co. is rooted in a history that stretches back over 1,200 years. The concept traces its origins to the Zoroastrian settlers — the Parsis — who fled Persia and made their way to Gujarat, eventually finding home in Bombay. Over generations, their cuisine absorbed the spices, textures, and warmth of the Indian subcontinent while holding onto the Persian refinement it had always carried. The result was something that belongs entirely to itself: gentle, layered, soulful, and completely unlike anything else.

The Vibe

There is an ease to Batliwala & Co. You arrive, you are welcomed, and you are seated when there is a table, a quality inherited directly from the Iranian café tradition. If you have never encountered Parsi or Irani café culture before, this is the gentlest, most generous possible introduction. It suits long dinners between close friends, quiet date nights, solo evenings with a book and a chai, and any occasion where what you really want is not just food, but the particular feeling of being in a place that actually means something. It is for the curious, the nostalgic, and anyone who has ever loved a city and missed it from very far.

The Verdict

This place is for everyone, but it will mean the most to some. If you grew up in Bombay — or if someone you love did — Batliwala & Co. will feel like being handed a piece of something you thought was only available in memory. A restaurant that you don't just visit but return to, for the food but also for the particular emotional register it operates in. Something warm, something nostalgic, something that reminds you that the best meals have always been about more than the food.

The Irani cafés of Bombay were, for generations, the great democratic spaces of the city — places where everyone came, where the millionaire and the clerk sat at adjacent tables and ordered the same chai. That spirit, that essential generosity, has been transported intact to Business Bay. Batliwala & Co. is Bombay soul wearing Dubai chic, and wearing it without any apparent effort.

Go. Arrive without a reservation. Sit wherever they put you. Order the dhansak, the keema pao, and the bun maska. Have the chai even if you don't need it. Pick up a jar from the provision shop on your way out. And notice, when you step back onto the street, and the Burj Khalifa reasserts itself against the sky, that you are leaving something that felt, for the length of a few hours, entirely like home.

Location  DoubleTree by Hilton, Bay Square, Business Bay, Dubai

Hours  Monday to Thursday 11 am - 2 am. Friday to Sunday 10 am - 2 am 

Reservations  Available via sevenrooms.com

Contact  +971 50 272 8727

Instagram  @baltiwaladxb