Restaurant Landscape in Mumbai — Data Talks
If you are looking for a culinary escapade, Mumbai is, by all means, the gastronomic hub of India. The restaurant industry of the city caters to a wide variety of palates. Let’s dig right into the mouthwatering delights it has to offer.
It offers a diverse range of cuisines from “Street Food” to “European” to the most popular Indian cuisine — “North Indian”. There’s something for everyone.
A staggering 48% of these are “Casual Dining” restaurants, followed by 26.6% of “Quick Bites” and “Cafes”. About 7.4% are “Pubs” followed by 6.3% “Fine Dining” restaurants. Whether you’re looking for a pocket-friendly casual meal or an opulent dining experience, the restaurants are considerably heterogeneous to oblige to all needs.
Let’s zoom in on the top genres of restaurants, namely “Casual Dining”, “Quick bites”, “Bar” and “Fine Dining”, to know more about their distributions through different cuisines.
Given the predominance of “Casual Dining” restaurants, they strongly influence the general distribution of cuisines. No wonder most of the casual dining restaurants are “North Indian” — as is the general trend (refer to figure 1). The average cheque size (ACS) in this genre ranges from ₹500 to ₹2500.
“Fast Food” is naturally the most popular cuisine along with “North Indian” for “Quick Bite” restaurants. “Chinese”, “South Indian” and “Street Food” are among other major cuisines served in this genre of restaurants.
The range of ACS for this genre is ₹150 to ₹1000. The restaurants in this genre are perfect for budget-friendly meals.
Most bars mainly serve “North Indian” and “Continental” cuisine. Other popular cuisines are “Asian”, “Italian”, “Finger Food”, “American” and “Chinese”.
Note that Bars serving “Asian” cuisine are the most expensive ones. ACS for Bars ranges from ₹1000 to ₹3500.
“North Indian” has been the hot favorite cuisine across all genres of restaurants and “Fine Dine” is no exception. “Italian”, “Asian”, “Chinese” and “Continental” are among the other popular cuisines served at Fine Dines.
“Chinese” and “European” Fine Dines are the most expensive of all the cuisines served. The ACS of restaurants under this genre lies between ₹1500 to ₹5000 making them a perfect choice for lavish meals.
An aggregation of Cuisine across all genres shows that “European” cuisine is the most expensive of all, followed by “Finger Food”, “Sea Food”, “Modern Indian”, “Asian” and “Continental”. Conversely, “Street Food”, “Fast Food” and “South Indian” are the most economical cuisines.
While “North Indian”is the most densely populated cuisine by sheer volume, “Modern Indian” is the most liked of all (by rating), followed by “Sea Food”, “Desserts” and “Asian”.
Powai, Malad West, Fort, Borivali West, Andheri Lokhandwala, Juhu and Khar are some of the most restaurant dense areas. Let’s have a look at how different genres of restaurants are distributed in these areas.
Interestingly, all Microbreweries are located in Lower Parel and Powai. Malad West has the highest number of Casual Dining restaurants, followed by Fort, Borivali West, Lower Parel and Powai.
It is worth noting the absence of “Bars” in Marol, Mira Road and Malad West, and “Cafes” in Vashi.
Fine Dine restaurants are mainly located in Andheri Lokhandwala, Colaba, Fort, Juhu, Khar, Lower Parel, and Malad West — indicating the poshness of these areas.
On a final note, if you are a connoisseur of food, you know where to head for your next food crawl! And if you are by ill luck, a restaurateur grasping at straws, take note of how the city has a niche crowd willing to pay the extra buck to indulge in some gourmet food experience (as can be seen in case of Bars serving Asian cuisine). Much to one’s surprise, there also aren’t as many Maharashtrian restaurants in the city as one would anticipate.
As aforethought, it is important to study such characteristics of the industry to spot these gaps in the market and leverage them while opening a new restaurant.
