Name to Fame

Area 51 is not the only restaurant with an unusual name. Several cafes,restaurants and bars are taking up whacky and unpredictable names that vary from the cleverly-titled Yolkshire (a Kothrud restaurant that serves egg-based food) and WTF (which expands to Where’s The Food),to the downright bizarre and morbid Café Euthanasia. In a city where dining out is becoming an everyday affair,and people are constantly on the lookout for an interesting place to hangout,the unusual names at eateries have become a way to catch attention.

Naughty Angel Café in Koregaon Park was set up by Ashwin Doijode more than six years ago as a casual hangout for young people. He remembers trying to think of a name for the café that would stick in his customers’ heads. “Naughty Angel is an easy name to remember. It helps us build an interesting image. The café is a simple place,full of love and care,but it’s not all nice and boring; there’s a little bit of naughtiness too,” he says.

For Naughty Angel,the quirky name might work better at customer recall than any marketing punchline,but at eateries such as the Pimpri-based Hand 2 Mouth and Viman Nagar lounge Don’t Tell Mama,the names are an opportunity to display a sense of humour and build a connection with patrons. Saugato Banerjee,who owns Hand 2 Mouth,a restaurant with multiple cuisines from across India,is well aware of the traditional connotation of the phrase hand-to-mouth — barely making ends meet. “Several customers have come up to me and asked why I named my restaurant that. Some see the humour in it,others wonder why I would use such a negative name. I tell them that traditionally Indians eat with their hands so the food literally goes from the hand to the mouth,” says Banerjee. The humour is self-explanatory in the case of Don’t Tell Mama. If you’re out late at night,enjoying a party with friends,you wouldn’t necessarily want your mother to know,would you? “We wanted a youth-centric name that was peppy and funny and something our patrons could relate to. That is how Don’t Tell Mama came about,” says the food and beverage manager,Jagdish Prasad Rewar.