Guru Shivaram, Amrit Hemdev, and Salman Sait, seasoned professionals across real estate, hospitality, and finance with over two decades of experience, realised that an alternate way to mitigate loss margins in the F&B sector would be through fractional ownership by a team of investors.
Bar Spirit Forward
Condé Nast Traveller India
At Spirit Forward on Lavelle Road, the no-frills cocktails will have you coming back for more.
Spirit Forward has only been open for two months but this “cocktail-centric bar” is already packed on a weekday night. The snug bar feels like the buzzy backroom of an old, grand theatre—warmly lit, with plush leather and rattan-detailed furnishings, and smokey glass design elements.
Bar Spirit Forward
Asia's 50 Best Bars
Taking some inspiration from Japan's omakase approach, Bar Spirit Forward is centred around a long, beautiful bar of teak wood and granite.
Created by accomplished bar operator Arijit Bose, and first opening its doors in the latter half of 2023. The cocktails are true to the bar's name—a 3 Gin Vesper Martini, a Campfire Old Fashioned—and a popular Southern Star, inspired by the Hotel Nacional, combining tequila with plum, guava and pickled jalapeño.
Una Hacienda
Elle Gourmet
From Nikkei-style tiraditos to soulful Mexican pozole, and pisco sours that shimmer with citrus brightness, Una Hacienda celebrates the spirit of Latin America with a menu that feels at once global and grounded.
Bengaluru has always had a taste for the global, but lately the city has been in the mood for something spicier, more layered, and unmistakably Latin. Enter Una Hacienda, a rooftop sanctuary that conjures the warmth of a Latin American estate house—leafy conservatories, vintage interiors, and that golden-hour glow which makes every evening feel like a celebration.
Una Hacienda · RIKO
The New Indian Express
A Peruvian and Latin American wave has hit the city's culinary landscape, welcoming concepts that bring not only novel ingredients and techniques but also a deeper cultural narrative.
The story traces Bengaluru's growing appetite for the South-American table—ceviches, tiraditos, palomas—and the rooms being built to serve them: Una Hacienda's rooftop estate, RIKO's Nikkei kitchen, and a quieter shift in how the city eats and drinks after dark.
Bar Cameo
The Nod
A chic watering hole on the rooftop of Bengaluru's Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), quietly launched at the end of January.
When I pull up at Bengaluru's Museum of Art & Photography at 7:30 pm on a Friday, well after the gallery closes to the public, it feels like living life on the edge—any minute now, someone will tap me on the shoulder and catch me red-handed for breaking in. Don't worry, the adrenaline is just in my head. I'm actually here for Bar Cameo, a chic watering hole on the rooftop of the museum.
Bistro Cameo
The Hindu
Bistro Cameo is the museum's latest addition. At the all-day dining restaurant, you can choose from offerings such as sesame udon noodles, quiche Lorraine, and lamb hummus.
It is the first bite of my sesame udon noodles at Bistro Cameo that wins me over. A museum date is the perfect way to beat the Bengaluru heat right now—that is what we decide as we head to MAP on Kasturba Road. After an afternoon of art gazing, and whetted appetites, we head upstairs to the museum's new offering, Bistro Cameo, an all-day dining restaurant that turns into a bar at night.
Bar Cameo
Hindustan Times
Nestled in the Museum of Art and Photography, Bar Cameo boasts a relaxing ambiance with vintage decor and a curated drink menu.
Bar Cameo sits quietly above one of the city's most celebrated cultural institutions, framing the green expanse of Cubbon Park through its windows. Vintage decor, considered lighting and a tightly curated drink menu make it one of the more singular rooms in Bengaluru—part museum, part neighbourhood bar.
Read the full featureProject Grain
Condé Nast Traveller India
At Project Grain, the newest addition to Bengaluru's cocktail scene, the pleasures are deliberately analog.
Bengaluru drinks ambitiously now—agave bars, listening rooms, speakeasies, fermentation labs and cocktail tasting menus. Project Grain, tucked into a corner of the Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Hotel at Brigade Gateway, focuses on something subtler and far more difficult to achieve: atmosphere. The first thing you notice is the wood—dark timber panelling climbs the walls, stretches across the ceiling in geometric grids and frames the long bar that anchors the room. Designed by SDeG, the interiors carry a cinematic warmth—part Kyoto listening bar, part Manhattan hotel lounge, part whisky den suspended in another decade.
Project Grain
The Nod
Bengaluru's newest barrel-focused bar—where you can knock down 18-year aged whisky highballs as a three-piece jazz band performs in a space Don Draper would approve.
Project Grain holds its essence in its name. When you step into the dimly-lit vault, every flicker of light celebrates the grain on the wood that surrounds you. From the patterned wooden bar frame and the unstructured wood chandelier to the corner stage waiting for a jazz band, the space relies on material to do the talking. Designed by SDeG—also behind Bob's Bar—the 60-seater is consciously created without the stuffiness of a classic five-star hotel: no dress codes, no tablecloths, no fussy servers. “We want to create a hotel bar that goes against the grain,” says Guru Shivaram, co-founder of Investorant, the F&B platform behind Spirit Forward, Una Hacienda and Bar Cameo.
