About Byblos Kitchen + Bar in 41 Ground Floor, High Street Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel, Mumbai

Byblos, an ancient city in Beirut, the first seat of civilisation and the first recorded cuisine.

Byblos is a fun, edgy restaurant in phoenix mills, lower parel with a trendy and sleek atmosphere. Playful food meets serious and elegant plating.
We took the origins of Levant food, borrowed a little from the Africas and turned the cuisine on its head. Byblos Food and Wine hopes to herald a new food renaissance, with renewed interest in fresh, additive free food, that is organic and locally sourced.

Traditional bread that uses only 4 ingredients; flour, water, wild yeast and salt are the need of the moment, with no additional leaveners or chemicals, in the form of baguettes and traditional Italian “Music sheet” bread (a thin cracker-like bread). Both fresh local and house made cheeses take centre stage in a modern cheese platter that is accompanied with a scallion & mozzarella savoury cake and house made jalapeño & cider vinegar jam.
Byblos transforms the restaurant space into a socially dynamic one, where the interplay begins not only between the diner and the food, but between all the senses. The meal starts with theatre, smoke and mirrors; the server brings to the table, an innocuous seeming candle in one hand and a bread basket in the other. Without ceremony, he lights the candle and with a poker face, lets the diner know that is in fact edible; the wick is made from soya and the candle itself is a dip for the housemate bread.

To delight the carnivore, Byblos serves a classic tandoori chicken with an African accent, African Berber Spiced Tandoori Chicken, A waffled pulled chicken sandwich, Peri Peri Rock Corn with Bacon Dust,Jalapeno Oil Prawns, Whiskey & Green Harissa Chicken with porcini mushroom dust, Tahini & Turkish Tarator Hammour (Reef Cod) and organic baby lamb Shawrama.
For the vegetarian, the sixth taste wakes up, with dishes like umami-rich hay-smoked mushroom in an African biryani. The eye is fooled with a savoury mustard and sriracha ice cream that crowns a traditional Turkish eggplant dish. Neo-Traditional dishes include a fried jalapeño popper sandwich, Caponata salad with Labneh Mousse & Olive dust, an Edible flower salad and a deconstructed baked potato with a Sour Cream Aero Foam Dip, Loaded Baked Potato Bits, and Parmesan-Tossed Potato Skins.
Fun street food dishes are baby lamb Arab Street Mutabbaq and a twist on Doubles, from Trinidad and Tobago, which is a sandwich made with flat fried bread filled with channa (curried chick peas). The Byblos version consists of Saj Bread (traditional Levant flatbread) is made into a taco shaped crisp bread and filled with chickpeas or spiced lamb and topped with a fresh labneh- like cheese infused with mint.
Desserts morph from the traditional ubiquitous ganache cake to a luxurious Chocolate Mink, an earl grey infused version. There is an unbirthday cake straight from the crazy world of Alice in Wonderland, with 5 types of vanilla, creme brûlée filling and a candle to celebrate everyday. The piece de resistance is Sparkles and things, a deconstructed lemon tart, an “Oops i dropped the lemon tart’ version of the orginal lemon bar, infused with sparkling wine and port meringues.

Sisters Duo, ying and yang, front of the house and back in the kitchens Nidhi & Vidhi Behl.

Executive chef Nidhi: Studied English Lit & Art History at Boston University but had a grand love affair with gastronomy. Being a neo-traditionalist at heart, she is an auto- didactic but trained herself in the formal rules of French cuisine. Because, to bend the rules one must know them. Worked as a restaurant consultant for restaurants and big food brands. Heavily influenced by her frequent travels to Saudi Arabia, where the food at the palaces wafted of modern Arabian Nights. Cooking style: Quirky, whimsical, drawing from childhood memories for inspiration.

About the Head of operations Vidhi: Studied Fashion Merchandising at FIT, managed her family business, started her own retail jewellery line. Wanted to eat good food but didn't know how to cook, so decided to team up with her sister so she could trade her admin skills for some great grub. Is head of operations for the company.