Some places remind you of somewhere. Bhawan reminds you of everywhere - the state bhawan canteen that smelled of dal and floor polish, the khao gully you stumbled into on a trip to a city that wasn't yours, the government building lobby with its high ceilings and flickering tube-lights and the particular unhurried chaos of people who knew exactly where they were going.

Bhawan is an ode to India's mid-century institutional architecture, its street food culture, its local materials, and the generations of vendors who built some of the country's most beloved food institutions without a single mood board between them. SKID translated all of this into a design language that is modern, playful, and deeply familiar - not a museum of nostalgia, but a room that earns its references honestly.

The palette is unapologetically Indian: muted olive green dado against warm beige walls, terracotta jali tiles framing the bar apron against Indian white marble countertops, lemon yellow and green cutting through the patterned tile floor, deep maroon in the upholstery, old school mosaic underfoot. The furniture draws from the same era - rexine upholstered chairs that are SKID's take on Breuer's iconic Cesca, wood laminate panelling from the post-Independence building boom, tube-lighting reimagined in antique brass.

At the centre arch, a vintage-style television runs old Bollywood films and advertisements, encased in a hand-crafted wooden box complete with knobs and fabric speaker grille. And along the booth seating and bar, illustrated streetscapes put the khao gully vendor centre stage - their carts, their expressions, the organised chaos of the street, rendered with full affection.

The more you look, the more you find.