Cafés in Colaba

Leopold and Mondegar on the Causeway

Leopold was founded in 1871 by Iranis and named after King Leopold of the Belgians; it began as a wholesale cooking-oil store, which is why its full name is Leopold Cafe & Stores.² On 26 November 2008 gunmen fired into it and threw grenades, killing eleven people. It reopened four days later and has kept some of the damage as a memorial.²

The novel Shantaram and its sequel, The Mountain Shadow, are partly set at Leopold, and the book is credited with bringing customers back after the attack.²

Café Mondegar opened on 1 April 1932 in the reception of the Apollo Hotel, in today's Metro House, and later installed what is reported to be Mumbai's first jukebox.³ In the 1990s the owner, Rusi Yazdegardi, commissioned the cartoonist Mario Miranda to cover two facing walls: one shows life in Mumbai, the other life in the café.³ Mondegar opens at 08:00 and closes at 23:30.

Specialty coffee behind the Taj

Araku opened its Colaba restaurant on 13 December 2023 on the ground floor of Sunny House on Mandlik Road, a building put up in 1897 by the Nawab of Surat. It seats 55 across 2,800 sq ft and serves coffee alongside lunch, dinner and cocktails.⁴ The coffee comes from the Eastern Ghats and is pulled on a Modbar system; the menu splits into "seriously", "playful" and "simply" Araku, the last for black coffee.⁵ Mag St. is on the same road.

Subko's two Colaba addresses

Subko's Cacao Mill fills a restored textile mill on 2nd Pasta Lane. Downstairs, chocolatiers crack, winnow, grind and temper cacao in view; upstairs, a café serves specialty coffee, hot chocolate and podi toast with cream cheese and curry leaves, at about ₹2,000 for two as of July 2026.⁶ Subko lists it as open daily 09:00–23:00.⁷

A temperature-controlled cellar sells bars in Indian flavors, among them milk chocolate with spicy podi and almonds, and sea buckthorn from Ladakh; visitors can also make a bar of their own.⁶

Subko Mini sits inside Abode Bombay, a hotel at Apollo Bandar; Subko gives its address as the first floor of Lansdowne House and its hours as 10:00–20:00 daily.⁷

Getting to Colaba

The underground Aqua Line reached Cuffe Parade, its southern terminus, on 8 October 2025; Vidhan Bhavan and Churchgate are the next stations north.⁸ Off the Causeway, Colaba Cha Raja is on Harmos Ji Street and Cafe Churchill is in East West Court on the Causeway itself.