Mumbai’s social map is littered with places that shout for your attention. Some are designed to dazzle, others to rush you through a performance of dining or drinking. But once in a while, a space appears that simply asks you to stay. Scarlett House Juhu is one of those places.
It follows Bandra’s Scarlett House, which quickly became a neighbourhood favourite, but Juhu brings a different temperament. The energy here is lighter, easier, touched by the sea breeze. What the founders have created is not just another outpost, but a mood: a place that holds its guests rather than hurries them.
The six partners behind the venture each bring something of themselves to the table. Amit and Afsana Verma, investors who understand culture as much as capital; Dhaval Udeshi, a hospitality veteran with an instinct for neighbourhood rhythm; Malaika Arora, culinary and lifestyle icon whose sensibility shapes the food; Malaya Nagpal, a creative mind with a flair for detail; and Arhaan Khan, a voice for coffee and community. Together they’ve imagined a space that feels as personal as it does polished.
“When you step into Scarlett House, the first thing we want you to feel is comfort,” the founders explain. Comfort here doesn’t mean casual indifference. It’s the kind of ease that comes with entering a home that knows you well. Afsana Verma calls it timeless: “There’s a certain timelessness to the idea of comfort done well, and we saw the potential to build that into a brand with real longevity at Scarlett House.”
That idea translates across the day. Morning light floods the glasshouse patio where coffee feels natural. Afternoons lend themselves to unhurried meals. Evenings belong to conversation, cocktails, and quiet corners. Nothing jars; the flow of the day is mirrored in the flow of the space.
Food at Scarlett House reflects Malaika Arora’s own approach. Plates are indulgent but never heavy, clean without being clinical. “Scarlett House feels like an extension of my own life-the way I like to eat, how I like to host, the kind of energy I look for in a space,” she says. Her addition of India’s first Hydration Bar feels both playful and practical-turmeric tonics, flavoured waters, blends that are as restorative as they are refreshing.
The cocktails, however, are where Scarlett truly makes you think. Fay Barretto’s bar program is not built around pyrotechnics but around feeling. “Each cocktail is rooted in a feeling,” she says, and she means it. Nostalgia layers apple, ginger, and spiced wine with the simple wink of a Parle G biscuit. Strength is smoky lapsang and celery, restrained but assured. Love arrives with a small heart.
Some drinks carry built-in pauses-sprays of scent mid-sip that encourage reflection. Others feel like personalities: the Cosmopolitan as flirty, the Picante as brash, the Whiskey Sour as witty. As Fay explains: “A great cocktail menu should open the door to conversation. That’s when it feels like it’s working.”
The PSI Take
There is, in Scarlett House, a lesson for bartenders and mixologists everywhere. Guests today are not looking to be impressed by theatre alone. They want something deeper-drinks that mirror how we socialise now: with intention, with memory, with meaning.
Scarlett’s bar program shows how to build that. Start with emotion, not just ingredients. Balance the familiar with the unexpected. Allow space for silence-a finish, an aftertaste, a pause that lets the guest linger. And think of cocktails not as spectacles but as companions, the kind you want to order again because they fit the table as naturally as conversation.
In a city where time is a commodity, Scarlett House Juhu gives you permission to take yours back. That, perhaps, is its greatest luxury.
