A Bar And Restaurant In Aerocity Act Like Two Hostile Siblings

Aerocity is quite a journey for me, but now that it is blooming and buzzing with restaurants, I visit it more often. Still, I need at least two business days to prepare for the traffic jams before I arrive where I am supposed to be. The expectation is that the two-hour drive will be worth it. My latest visit was dedicated to Selva, a restaurant serving Mexican, Nikkei, Peruvian, and Japanese plates under one roof. Sounds mostly regular.

However, a surprise awaits you inside Selva.

Selva Maya is a bar whose drinks programme has been curated by Hideaway Goa‘s team (recognised in Asia’s 50 Best Bars). The catch is that neither venue, Selva nor Selva Maya, shares its cocktail and food menu (or even playlists) with the other. It feels like the story of two siblings who live in the same house but aren’t on cordial terms.

Jokes aside.

What does that mean for you, the diners? Well, it means that if you choose to dine at Selva, you have to skip the delicious drinks that the Hideaway team has crafted for Selva Maya, and if you are at Selva Maya, you will miss out on the nori taco (among other dishes) that Chef Vaibhav Bhargava has put on Selva’s menu. So wherever you are, you are losing and gaining in equal parts.

I don’t know how I feel about the idea. At a time when restaurants are opting for multi-front and shapeshifting spaces that are cafes by day and bars by night, Selva chooses to alienate its diners from one experience while indulging in the other. Will the model work? Time shall tell, but I have my doubts.

I was guided into Selva Maya. Named after the second-largest tropical rainforest in the Americas, Selva Maya, with its woody, clean interiors, was dimly lit to resemble a cocktail bar. More intimate than Selva, which you will pass by before you enter Maya. “While we have named it after a rainforest, by no means did I want to add greens and give the space the face of a jungle,” said restaurateur Sarthak Sidana. And I am glad he did that.

The place struck the right chord with the playlist and interiors: clean enough to let all the attention go straight to the drinks and dishes.

Named after animals, every cocktail at Maya has a spirit animal. I started off with the crisp Viper’s Venom. Beneath its venomous green hue lay a deceptively smooth, ice-cold martini. This complex venom came from five independent, house-made blends. The gin-based sip featured white chocolate vermouth, bitter bianco, raw mango tiger’s milk, watermelon rind, and cherry tomato. It was equal parts umami, savoury, and crisp.

A crowd favourite and for the right reasons, Butterfly Effect, was one of my favourite cocktails from among all those I tried. Keeping up with the Peruvian aspect of the menu, this floral and fruity drink featured pisco, raspberry, elderflower, cherry, carrot, and pink peppercorn. It looked beautiful with its crimson hue, and every sip revealed the palate of the cocktail’s ingredients. Whether it was the sweetness of raspberry and cherry or the aroma of elderflower, it was a drink that stood true to its ingredients, and that’s all you need to know before deciding what to order.

Next up was Gojira. This is the only imaginary spirit animal on the menu, and its name is derived from two Japanese words: “gorilla” (gorira) and “whale” (kujira). Resonating with the character of an animal that would be a combination of a gorilla and a whale, the drink was bold and aggressive on the palate. Smokiness was the most prominent note, pairing tequila and mezcal with an all-citrus blend of orange, lime, grapefruit, goji berry, and apple chamomile soda. While there were ingredients that could have made the highball-style drink a more refreshing twist, I thought of it as a sip you would order on a more serious day, and the smoked cheese on the side truly enhances all the flavours it aims to deliver.

Finally, it was a drink I least enjoyed from the menu. Pretnetious Toucan. Featuring whisky, hibiscus tea, honey, and ginger, the drink at first tasted nothing close to a whisky cocktail but a hibiscus tea mocktail. Stirring was never recommended by the bartender, but when I did, it slightly saved the cocktail. But still, didn’t pass the mark.

The drinks menu at Maya also offers a range of mocktails you can opt for if you are a teetotaller. The Green Sea with green apple, wasabi, and mint, along with Kemuri Roots that pair lacto-fermented carrot, lapsang, carrot powder, and micro green, are two of the four that you can pick. What I truly liked about the curation of the drinks menu was that the ingredients used remained rooted in the restaurant’s larger cuisine and concept.

Basically, the siblings are unfriendly but continue to respect the parent.

The bar bites at Maya are not just accompaniments but great standalones. From the empanadas and the garlic butter prawns to the tanuki avocado roll and truffle edamame dumpling, the choices aren’t many but are enough to pair well with your drinks and make for a delicious post-dinner bite.

One perk of being hosted is that you get to break the rules. And I did. I could sample dishes from Selva’s menu while dining at Maya. The menu is extensive but neatly categorised, but I left it to Chef Bharagava to decide what he would like to serve (taking the omakase trend seriously).

I started with a regular Burrata al Verde, where the standout was the Peruvian pesto. The burrata was of great quality, but otherwise it was a regular salad you can enjoy anywhere else. From the soft-shell taco menu, I ordered the Fungae. The soft base is topped with crispy mushrooms and truffle mayo to make a well-textured bite. If you are a vegetarian and keen on trying soft tacos, this should be your pick.

Now comes my favourite section of the menu: the nori taco. Bringing Japanese into Mexican and creating a taco with nori is a brilliant idea. It wasn’t the first time I tried it, but the only vegetarian option, Avo Verde, was worth a second round. You can pass the sushi, to be honest. Nothing you can’t find at any other spot in the city, but priced definitely higher than many other spots.

What is, however, worth your money is the Tlayudu or the cold pizzas. I opted for the Mexican Beans variant, which featured beans, tanuki furikake, togarashi, and mayo on a crispy tortilla, topped with red onions. While my co-diner didn’t quite enjoy the idea, I thought it was well done. It was definitely not even close to a pizza, only shaped like it, but whatever it was, it was done well.

I would not recommend the tofu sashimi. I enjoyed the topping, which featured avocado salsa, coriander ponzu dressing, gombo drizzle, and Japanese chilli thread, but the slices of tofu stayed long after the topping, and they tasted like nothing. The slices could be made slimmer so the dish can be made for one good bite.

The Fiery Lotus Stem and vegetarian gyoza aren’t bad, but shouldn’t be your choice if you are planning to try something new. The Mexican prawns that sat in a pool of sauce prepared using tobanjan, mango salsa, and honey were a good plate. The prawns were well done and went well with the sauce. Not my views, but the co-diner’s.

Pass on the purple potato from the robatayaki section.

Come the mains, and I went for the obvious enchiladas and the pulled jackfruit variant. There was so much cheese that I couldn’t find the jackfruit until I opened the tortilla and spotted it. I was expecting a lot from the anchiladas but didn’t land. Finally, if you think that after all the eating, I could still try the desserts, you are wrong. I would have tried had the churros been available, but sadly, they weren’t. So the dessert was skipped.

But on the menu is a tres leches, Basque cheesecake, and matcha tiramisu. Pick your choice and tell me which is the best so I know what to order when I’m there next, which implies I will visit again, if not so much for the food (barring the nori tacos), definitely for the drinks!