Inside Delhi’s speakeasy culture: Why hidden bars are thriving

Inside Delhi’s speakeasy culture: Why hidden bars are thriving

For a format born out of evasion, the speakeasy has found a surprisingly stable home in Delhi. This is a city that has never been uneasy with discretion; if anything, it has long understood that some pleasures are heightened by selective access. Delhi’s social life has always operated on layers — of invitation, proximity, and knowledge — and within this framework, the speakeasy feels more like an extension of how the city already moves after dark.

The drinks at Somewhere Nowhere

When Rakshay Dhariwal, founder and managing director, Pass Code Hospitality and Maya Pistola Agavepura, opened PCO in Vasant Vihar in 2012 — now widely regarded as India’s first speakeasy — Delhi’s nightlife was starkly binary. You were either battling volume in a nightclub or speaking in hushed tones at a five-star hotel bar, with little room for those who wanted a serious cocktail without the ceremony. PCO’s phone booth entrance, passcode and jazz-inflected interiors nodded to classic speakeasy aesthetics, but the intent was pragmatic rather than nostalgic. “If I’m being honest, the filter was the driving force,” Rakshay says. The passcode, he explains, was not about secrecy for its own sake, but about a subtle barrier that ensured everyone inside had actively chosen to be there.

Inside The Bar Behind the Sandwich Shop | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

That idea of intent has slowly become the backbone of Delhi’s speakeasy culture. Without signboards or street-facing visibility to pull in foot traffic, these spaces are forced to rely on reputation, memory and word of mouth. Over time, the city has responded by treating discretion as a form of luxury. Rakshay is clear that while several elements determine longevity, their order matters. “The drinks programme is the anchor,” he says. A hidden entrance only works if what waits at the end of it is worth the effort. When the cocktail delivers, the concealment feels indulgent; when it does not, the secrecy quickly curdles into inconvenience.

Noctis | Photo Credit: Parth Mehrotra