Part of the Mahalakshmi race track in Mumbai, The Tote is a restaurant/bar designed by UK based Serie Architects where the extensive lunch banquet was presided over by 10 chefs all in their chef whites and high hats. We of course just went for a cup of tea…

Set directly against a series of old colonial buildings the new build references the existing mature rain trees of the surrounding area.

You enter through a simple black stone portal corridor, with the same material on floor, walls and ceiling – an amazing contrast to what awaits you further in.

The main space of the restaurant then opens up before you as a white forest with steel beams morphing from the floor into branches along the ceiling, which in turn has a complex pattern of plasterboard and plywood recesses. Although the photos make it seem that all is white, there are various shades of white and beige which emphasise the structure and patterns created. This pattern on the ceiling is then referenced on the floor with stainless steel fillets set into the reconstituted white floor, the same stone in a different colour-way, to the black portal entry. An amazing study in contrasts of light and dark is followed into the toilets where the black stone resurfaces along with faceted mirror walls.

One of the truly magical spaces of Mumbai, just a shame we couldn’t stay for lunch…