Our directory lists one Spanish restaurant in India: La Loca María, at Fatima Villa on 29th Road in Bandra West, Mumbai. This profile sticks to what the restaurant's own record says, plus some general background on the Spanish city its chef comes from.
The chef behind it
The record describes La Loca María as the brainchild of chef Manuel Olveira Seller. It calls the restaurant a manifestation of his Spanish heritage mixed with global influences, and lists the type of food as Spanish cuisine and tapas.
According to the same record, he comes from Toledo and has worked as chef de cuisine at five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants abroad. The examples it names are the St. Regis on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, and Le Cirque and Café Belge at The Ritz-Carlton in Dubai.
The record also says he moved to India with encouragement from his Indian wife, Pratima Tuljapurkar, and that he now cooks for Mumbai. It does not give a year for the move, so we won't guess one.
Toledo, for context
The record doesn't list individual dishes, so this section is about Toledo in general, not about the menu.
Toledo is a city in Castilla-La Mancha, in central Spain. Its best-known sweet is mazapán, almond marzipan, and Mazapán de Toledo is a protected geographical indication. The surrounding La Mancha region is where Manchego cheese comes from, and the province of Toledo is inside the Manchego designation of origin area. Game cooking also has a long history there, with partridge stewed the Toledo way (perdiz a la toledana) as the classic example.
None of that means these dishes are on the menu at La Loca María. It is just the cooking tradition of the city the chef comes from. If you want to know what he brings from it, ask the staff.
Planning a visit
- Address: Fatima Villa, 29th Road, Bandra West, Mumbai. The restaurant's linked listing page places it in the Pali Hill part of Bandra West.
- Listed hours: Tuesday to Sunday, lunch 12:00 to 15:30 and dinner 19:00 to 01:00. The record lists no Monday hours, so check before going on a Monday.
- Reviews: the record shows a Google rating of 4.6 from 1,894 reviews.
Hours change, so confirm them on the restaurant's own channels before you go.
Other chef-led Spanish kitchens in Asia and the Americas
If you like restaurants where a named chef brings Spanish cooking far from Spain, these records in our directory have a similar angle:
- Taburete, Bangkok: run by chef-owner Kannika Kongkaew, who spent ten years cooking in Spain, with her partner Josep Mascarell.
- Ajoblanco, Mexico City: developed by chef Pablo San Román, who cooks with Mexican chef Manuel Victoria. Its record says the name comes from the almond gazpacho of Málaga and Extremadura.
- Montreal Paella, Montreal: Valencian paella made daily by chef and owner Mariano Fernandez.
