We spent three months preparing for one evening.
Three months of testing dishes, arguing about plates, changing our minds and changing them back. Working out where the pianist would sit. Deciding what the light should look like at eight o'clock.
All of it for about three hours on the last Friday in July.
Days To Sell Out
Guests Around One Table
People On The Waiting List
What Actually Happened
Honestly, every one of us was holding our breath. You can plan something for months and still have no real idea whether it will work until people are sitting in the room.
It worked.
Twenty five guests came to Bonoo Hampstead for our first ever supper club. Two of them were celebrating birthdays and ended up sharing them with twenty two people they had never met. By the end of the night, they were not strangers — numbers were swapped, tables that started separate finished together.
Somewhere around the seventh course, everyone was full. Properly, genuinely full. And every single person finished all ten courses anyway.
Nine years of running this restaurant, and it might be the best night we have had.
Why We Are Doing It Again
Within a week we had eight people on a waiting list for an event that no longer existed.
So we are doing another one — Friday 28th August. But we did not want to simply repeat the same evening. The whole point of a supper club is that it happens once, in that room, on that night, and then it is gone.
So August is something different entirely.
The Bollywood Supper Club
Bollywood was a joke that stuck. Bombay plus Hollywood — a nickname coined in the seventies that nobody expected to last. Bombay officially became Mumbai in 1995. The name never caught up.
But the films were always about that city. And so, if you watch closely, is the food.
Our August menu goes to the source: seven courses drawn from across Mumbai.
Chowpatty Beach
The chaat stalls of Mumbai's seafront, where the whole city goes at sunset and eats standing up. Sweet, sour, sharp and crunchy in a single mouthful.
The Irani Cafés
Fort district institutions serving Bombay's Parsi communities for over a century. Marble tables, slow ceiling fans, and food that has not changed since.
The Koli Coast
Mumbai's original fishing communities, on that coastline long before the city existed — and still bringing in the prawns. Malvani spice, coconut, kokum.
And behind all of it, the Maharashtrian home kitchens where the real cooking has always happened — misal pav, Kolhapuri heat, and the slow-built regional flavours that the street food grew out of.
Street food, elevated. Coastal spice. The city on a plate.
The Evening Itself
Our pianist will be playing Bollywood through the evening rather than the ambient set from July. The room will be dressed for it — gold, jewel tones, candlelight.
And there is a dress code this time: Bollywood glamour.
Saris, lehengas, sherwanis, kurtas, sequins, colour — or simply the most glamorous thing sitting in your wardrobe waiting for an occasion. Go as far as you like. And if you have no Indian wear at all, that is completely fine. The spirit of the evening matters more than the outfit.
What Is A Supper Club, Exactly?
If you have not been to one before — a supper club is a curated dining experience rather than a restaurant booking. There is no menu to order from. Everyone eats the same thing at the same time, and the evening is designed as a whole rather than assembled from individual orders.
It is closer to being invited to dinner than to booking a table. That is why the guest number matters. Twenty five is small enough that the room becomes one conversation rather than twelve separate ones.
It is also why they tend to sell out. There are only ever twenty five seats.
Bollywood Supper Club
Seven courses from Mumbai · Live Bollywood piano · Unlimited drinks · Bollywood glamour dress code · Twenty five guests only
Doors 7:00pm · Dinner 7:30pm · £79 per person, all inclusive
Bonoo Indian Tapas, 675 Finchley Rd, Hampstead
The last one sold out in ten days