Paradox, a cocktail-forward bar opened early this year in Mumbai, India and is headed by Ankush Gamre. From the same team that created Masque, India’s No.1 restaurant on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list, Gamre also does the cocktails and the cocktail pairing at Masque.
The ground floor of the bar is dedicated to an open kitchen and a dining room. Working with a little more fire and a little less restraint, Gamre’s menu at Paradox is, like the name suggests, a study in contrasts: structured yet fluid, familiar yet strange. This is the stage for his boldest, most audacious cocktails with some daring pairings bursting with flavour and technique. Drinks at Paradox are built to shift, not settle. They’re poured with technique and layered with flavour, designed to evoke questions, not answer them. But he does answer questions here:
How did you get into bartending and mixology?
Though not a trained chef, I enjoy cooking a lot. Everything I know about cooking has been passed on from my mother. I first got into hospitality as a bar back for different restaurants. This generated a lot of interest in bartending and everything that came with it. Enough to sign up for Diageo’s Bar Academy programme, which I completed alongside my job.
Once I was done with that, I landed a full-time gig at Please Don’t Tell, a Mumbai bar. One of my seniors joined Masque and called me over to work with him. I joined Masque in 2017 as assistant bartender. I worked my way up the ranks and today I head the beverage programmes at Masque and cocktail bar Paradox, which opened earlier this year.
How did the drinks concept for Paradox come about?
When I first heard the word ‘paradox’, what struck me was the idea of ‘no rules’, which incidentally was also the brief that Aditya [Dugar] gave Varun [Totlani] and me.
A paradox doesn’t have a straight explanation, does it? And that’s exactly how our cocktails are. We take the spirit of experimentation we’re known for, and turn it on its head. The flavours and techniques are fresh, unpredictable; what’s in your glass might have taken two hours or two months to craft. No one will tell you this, but you’ll subconsciously feel that complexity and technique with every sip. That’s what Paradox is about: pushing boundaries, breaking limits. We didn’t build this bar around a story, we built it around an imagination that refuses to colour inside the lines.
Take us through the different sections of the menu.
There is a beautiful harmony in the drinks menu, where there is everything from sweet to savoury to umami-based drinks.
First off, we have a special zine menu – Revelations – which feels like it has a life of its own. It’s the start of an evolving series that changes with the seasons, based on what the team’s been tinkering with in the lab. The zine format made sense because it gave us space to be playful, raw and instinctive. Think of it as the problem child of Paradox that doesn’t follow the rules, but is still very much part of the bloodline.
Then there’s our regular drinks menu; you open it and we have 10 house cocktails (and one ‘Cheap Date’ that has Johnnie Walker Blue Label and caviar!), followed by four cocktails on tap. Then you come to our selection of wines and straight pours, rounded off with zero-proof beverages.
Why did you choose the Tap cocktails and what’s the reason behind that?
Paradox is the first bar in the city to offer tap cocktails. It’s a great customer experience to walk into a bar, make your way to a table and order a tap cocktail that appears quickly, within minutes. Sipping on a drink while you decide what to eat makes the experience even more fun. They set the tone for what to expect from the evening.
Are you more inclined to cater to the Indian palate when formulating the cocktails?
Paradox is from the same family that has brought Masque to India, so at heart, we will always have local, seasonal Indian ingredients in mind. But it’s also catering to an audience which loves global experiences and flavours. Nothing at Paradox can be boxed into one thing conceptually, whether it’s the food or the drinks.
Tell us about the secret snack only reserved for bar counter seats? Why is it only for those seats?
You’re making me give away my best-kept secret!
If you’re a friend of the bartender or a Paradox regular sitting at the bar, we have a small mushroom bite that’s an umami flavour bomb. You’ll never see this anywhere but at the bar. We’ve made it in a way that it complements a drink’s acidity, so take a bite, sip your drink, rinse and repeat. It’s totally worth becoming a regular for!
How does the menu pair with the cocktail menu?
The food menu in the dining room and the bar is the same, save for two dishes – the Thai Steam Boat and the Kakigori. Those two are dining room exclusives; the rest of the food and drinks menu is available wherever you might be seated at Paradox.
How does it differ from Masque?
Masque will always celebrate Indian ingredients through its food and drinks; that’ll pretty much never change. But Paradox isn’t bound by any particular rules or format in terms of the flavours we offer. Which is why you see squid and caviar in the food and drinks, because it just made sense to put it on the Paradox menu. Overall, Paradox is designed to give guests an international experience right here in Mumbai. The drinks and food are all designed to reflect the kind of space Paradox is, which is very different from Masque in its inherent offering.
What’s next for Ankush Gamre?
I’ve only gotten started at Paradox. It’s my playground and the chance to be cheeky, fun and wild. So, the next bit is to keep upping my game at Masque and Paradox, because you’re only as good as the last cocktail you mixed!