As we enter Cuffe Parade's World Trade Centre on a weekday night, Flamboyante is humming with the last set of diners, and opposite, at the newly opened neighbourhood bar, Hammer and Song, the party is just getting started. The space is done up in wood, grey walls and cosy blue seating. A staircase lined with shelves of liquor bottles takes you to the mezzanine floor. "This is an attempt to give Cuffe Parade its friendly neighbourhood bar," says owner Amrish Arora, who opened Flamboyante in 2007 as a restobar, and is now back at the venue with a new venture.

A lesson in experimentation
The 50-year-old has come a long way as a restaurateur. As we settle down for a chat, he takes us back to old Bombay, when Orchid Hotel was Airport Plaza, and he had managed to sign Lyril to sponsor his first experiment of a rain-dance party at their nightclub, Go Bananas. "I was in my early 20s, spending time wind surfing with friends at Colaba when Vithal Kamat, a family friend, roped me in to sell memberships for his club, which later became Kamat's Plaza, and now The Orchid Hotel at Vile Parle," says Arora, who used to be an avid footballer.