The Mowgli Monkey

I came to Mowgli late, a dowager tiger mother of monkeys. I designed every brick of Mowgli, every element of her physicality. I laboured ridiculously over her, and always will. Not one shelf goes up without me pondering it and positioning it. I wanted to create a place that neutralised your expectations entirely, that removed all those preconceptions you would have of an Indian restaurant so that we could then do to you what we wanted with our food. I used the temples behind my grandmother’s Varanasi home as the palette for my design. Broken-down grandeur, warm, worn brick hung about with vines, monkeys with their sass and their independent determination striding across the rooftops. The Monkey logo was borne from those memories. I still remember the whole-body thrill I felt seeing the Mowgli Monkey being carried down Oxford Street on a tote bag in London when we were just one restaurant strong. She strides before me does this monkey. With her ponderous frown and her defiant flick of the tail. She is the personification of all that I have built.