Dubai dining

Irani restaurants may be dying in good, old Bombay but a father-daughter duo in Dubai is paying tribute to the community’s lost legacy with their very own Cafe Funkie Town. Calling it "the original Bombay café,” Firoz Mithaiwala and Roshni Siddique have converted their passion for the city they love into a full-fledged business.

Roshni Siddique and Firoz Mithaiwala outside Cafe Funkie Town

Nostalgia for the Irani café culture, old-time Bollywood and erstwhile Parsi homes is the leitmotif of this place. Customers come away with not just lip-smacking food memories but also rave about its unique retro ambience. A fun, quirky environment is created by bric-a-brac like see-through bannis (jars) filled with naankhatai and khari biscuits, an aluminium chai kettle, a bhaiyya milk can, a tiffin carrier and an old gramophone player. As one takes a step back in time at the trademark round marble-top table and is tempted to use the antique bell placed on it, one cannot help but notice the eclectic display: colorfully framed photographs of Bollywood stars of yesteryears and old Bombay on the walls, the rocking chair and the walking stick in the corner, the vintage rotary-dialer telephone and ice-gola machine, the idiosyncratic wall sayings and "Rules of the Cafe”…
Located in Jumeirah Lake Towers in ‘new’ Dubai, Cafe Funkie Town opened in December 2013, its title inspired by the popular 1980 song of the same name. The owners say they always wanted to start a restaurant ("we are big-time foodies — we die to eat!”) but they had to wait two years due to the economic recession. Mithaiwala spent 44 years in management in top hotels like the Oberoi and Leela in Bombay before relocating to Dubai in 2010 at the urging of Vahida, his salon owner-turned-yoga teacher wife. Son Zubin, a banker, and Roshni, also a banker until the eatery beckoned, were already based in Dubai.
The Mithaiwala connection with food stretches back generations to the time when 30 members of the joint family stayed together in "our big, fat Parsi home” in Bandra, Bombay, the dad recounts. "Our house had no less than 12 rooms! My grandmother Perin and mother Shirin sent out a large number of bhonas (meals) for decades from there, besides feeding so many people at home. We grew up with the aromas of delightful Parsi food wafting across our house all the time,” recalls Firoz.
The menu includes breakfast varieties like bun maska for Dh 8 (Rs 139) to akuri fully loaded for Dh 34 (s 592). Siddique says chai is another favorite and is characteristically served in desi tea glasses. The Parsi culinary experience comprises dhansak, prawn dishes and curry chawal from Dh 40 (Rs 696) to Dh 45 (Rs 783), papeta ma gosht for Dh 36 (Rs 626), chicken farcha Dh 30 (Rs 522), berry pulaos from Dh 28 (Rs 487) to Dh 36 (Rs 626), cutlets from Dh 16 (Rs 278) to Dh 18 (Rs 313), kheema pattice for Dh 22 (Rs 383). She terms the lagan nu custard, Peach Melba and falooda as their "super-specialities.”
The Cafe, which sits 40 indoors and 16 outdoors, offers some north Indian dishes and is also high on its ‘Simply Roadside Bombay’ cuisine — Bambaiya frankies, baida rotis, cutlets and burgers. "People miss the Bombay street food,” Siddique, 38, says, "so we want to give them that authentic experience.”

Clockwise from above: the daughter-father duo; inside of the eatery and Parsi memorabilia

The Cafe is a sole father-daughter venture. "My dad and I are very dominating,” jokes Siddique, "we don’t let mum join in!” The two are very hands-on owners, interact with ease with the customers and share a joyful camaraderie. Mithaiwala, 62, is in charge of the cuisine, having personally trained his staff, who are all from Bombay. "Dad is a typical Parsi — very disciplined and strict. Sometimes, I have to manage him!” the daughter laughs. "We are passionate about our work and so we do have our small fights.”
She is the one who conceptualized the Cafe’s 1970s atmosphere, including the not-to-be-missed washroom. Everyone who visits the place spreads the word that one must not come away without a jaunt to its famous loo! The family being diehard Bollywood fans, they have put a lot of thought into converting the washroom walls into a fun pastiche of famous Hindi film dialogs.
Siddique, who has an eight-year-old daughter, divides her time between the Cafe, her home and the school run, and enjoys the restaurant business more than the mundane world of banking. With a mixed Parsi-Muslim heritage, Siddique grew up in a liberal environment and is herself married to a Muslim-Christian. "Mum may be a Muslim but she brought us up as pucca Parsis.” Adds Mithaiwala, "Can you believe it my wife used to escort the children to the agiary?” He refused to be drawn into commenting on the issue of intercommunity marriages. "I don’t believe in intruding into other people’s lives. We should instead be focusing on preserving our rich heritage and in emulating the good our ancestors did.”
Along this line, the Cafe also has a small glass gallery on one side of the entrance, featuring vintage items, including Siddique’s navjote pearl necklace, a Parsi kor and sari, pheto, topi, ses, afarganyu, pocket watches, spectacles and keys.
The pair is planning another restaurant in Dubai in the near future, "perhaps one centered round the theme of prominent Parsis of yore.” They hope to be aided in this endeavor by Mithaiwala’s personal set of photographs going back generations. The Gourmet Godfather, as his business card labels him, also owns a formidable collection of old coins, but that is another story.