Daniell’s Tavern, specializing in food from the Raj period, is named after an uncle and nephew team of engravers and painters who came to India in the late-18th century to record their impressions of the country. Many of their works have been collected by the Imperial’s owner and are displayed here.
The San Gimignano is the Imperial Hotel’s Italian restaurant and serves a wide variety of pasta dishes and premium Italian grappa and wines.
The private dining terrace of the Royal Imperial Suite is one of the few areas of the hotel that still retain much of its original decor. The original black and white floor tiles remain although in the rest of the hotel, they have been exchanged for a softer look of beige and white.
Potted palms, a breakfast table with wicker chairs and the black and white floor tiles help to retain the colonial feel of the Royal Imperial Suite.
The Imperial’s spacious Deco Suites are 650 square feet (60 square meters) in size and and derive their names from their art deco interiors.
Paradiso DiVino is the name of the dining terrace in the hotel’s Italian restaurant, the San Gimignano. The Paradiso DiVino’s gazebos, trickling fountain and greenery create a very pleasant and relaxing ambiance for diners.
Two identical vases guard the entrance to the private dining terrace in the Royal Imperial Suite. The suite is 2,100 square feet (195 square meters) in size and includes a steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi.
This passageway on the second floor of the hotel defines the “new” Imperial after its extensive five-year renovation. In many sections of the hotel, beige and white tiles have replaced the more dramatic black and white ones that were so characteristic of British colonial architecture.
The Lutyens’ suites are named after Sir Edwin Lutyens, the architect who designed the Viceroy’s palace in New Delhi and numerous other architectural wonders. The rooms are decorated with antique Raj furniture and art objects from the owner’s extensive collection. The suite features marble baths, Fragonard & Bvlgari bathroom facilities, a four-poster king-size bed as well as modern facilities such as high speed wireless internet access and Bang & Olufsen televisions.
Some twenty-five years before the celebrated Gateway of India was erected on a spit of land called Apollo Bunder at the port of Bombay (now known as Mumbai), the first monument of the subcontinent that greeted arriving visitors by sea was the even more celebrated Taj Mahal Hotel.
This imposing structure, five stories tall and adorned with a huge glittering central dome as well as several smaller ones, had opened in 1903 and from that moment became what author Jan Morris called a synonym for the “quintessence of imperial amplitude.”
The Taj was the ultimate achievement of one Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the father of a Parsee dynasty who made his first fortune in the cotton trade and later branched out into mills, hydroelectric works, a shipping line and numerous other businesses. According to one story, Jamsetji took a foreign friend for dinner at a local hotel in the closing years of the 19th century and was denied entry simply because he was not European, a sadly familiar occurrence in those days when the British concept of racial superiority was at its zenith. Jamsetji, however, was in a position to respond: he decided to build a hotel so palatial Europeans would be attracted to it, but open it to Indians and people of all races.
Jamsetji went about the task with characteristic dedication. Two Indian architects, Sitaram Khanderao Vaidya and D.N. Mirza, drew up the original design and when Vaidya died, an English architect of radical persuasion,W. A. Chambers, took over the job. In 1898, foundations 40 feet (12 meters) deep were laid on two and a quarter acres (one hectare) of reclaimed land and on this rose a massive building flanked by two wings, creating space for a large courtyard. (Contrary to some reports, the U-shaped structure did not face the wrong way; the courtyard was created to trap late afternoon breezes, which blew not from the ocean but from a back bay and its position also ensured that most guests could enjoy rooms overlooking the sea.)
While the hotel was under construction, Jamsetji went to London, Dusseldorf, Berlin and Paris to select the furnishings, paying careful attention to every detail, from fabrics to lighting fixtures. In Paris he attended the opening of the Eiffel Tower and was inspired to order ten pillars of spun iron, which would hold up the ballroom of the Taj. Writing to his son Dorab about the decorations he commented: “In this matter, there is no science of taste established, though it is possible at some remote time such a universal agreement may be brought about. But taste in this matter keeps so constantly varying that often fashions change every few years; and what goes out now, may come back. Under the circumstances, we must try to do what we think our customers would like.”
Jamsetji died in 1904, but he had already seen the opening of his remarkable creation and the excitement it had stirred. Everything about the Taj, from its theatrical blend of architectural styles (Rajput and Gujerati, Florentine, Edwardian and Moorish) to its splendid atrium-style central stairwell and overall sense of space, was designed to impress; and this it most certainly did. As one visiting journalist wrote in 1905: “The Taj Hotel is on such a scale of magnificence and luxury that at first it rather took one’s breath away.”
It was the first commercial building in Bombay to be electrified, with its own power plant serving not only the rooms but also four lifts, a laundry and a Turkish bath. In addition, a gas-operated ice machine provided refrigeration and helped cool the suites. (It would later have Bombay’s first licensed bar, its first restaurant to stay open all day, and its first discotheque.)
The hotel at once became Bombay’s unrivaled social and political center. Banquets were held there twice for King George V and Queen Mary, once in 1905 before he was crowned and again in 1911 when he received his Indian subjects at a grand durbar. Another was held for Edward, Prince of Wales, when he visited in 1921. Even those anxious to put an end to British rule, among them Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi were equally welcome, as was a steady stream of Maharajahs and Princes, for whom the Taj proved the perfect place to escape formality while still offering the palatial standards they were accustomed to. (The Maharajah of Patiala, for example, was able to check in with his entire retinue of staff, servants and personal harem and find rooms waiting for them all.)
The Taj maintained its lofty position and its fabled service through two world wars, the birth of Indian independence, and beyond. During World War II it became a 600-bed hospital, and later, in 1948, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the first governor general of independent India, chose it as the place to give his inaugural speech to the leaders of Indian industry.
A staff member in traditional Indian dress stands outside the entrance of
