THEDRUNKENMUNKEY
Wedding receptions in a little Old Bombay
We have hosted over 50 wedding receptions. A seated reception dinner takes 32 at the table with 10 more at the bar, a standing reception takes 50 to 55, and the whole restaurant can be yours for the night.
We have done this over 50 times
Over 50 wedding receptions have gone through this room. That is enough of them that the questions have all been asked before, and the answers are usually shorter than people expect.
The room does a good deal of the work. It is candlelit before anyone thinks to dim anything, old films run silent on the wall, and it holds a crowd without losing the food — which is the part of a reception most rooms get wrong.
Table 2 has seen more first dates than we can remember, and it is still the table to ask for when you are out to impress somebody. That a reception here might be the far end of a dinner that started at it is a pleasant thought, and one we are happy to leave unexamined.
Seated, standing, or the whole restaurant
A seated reception dinner takes up to 32 at the long table, with another 10 at the bar. Shared starters go down the middle and an entrée is plated for each guest, so nobody eats last and nobody is negotiating with a serving spoon in their good clothes.
Past 32 the sensible shape is standing: hors d’oeuvres passed through the room, 50 to 55 guests, everyone free to move. It is also where a guest list tends to end up once the invitations have gone out.
A full buyout gives you the dining room and the bar together, and for the length of the booking the restaurant takes nobody else. Send the date about a month out for the whole room, one to two weeks for a seated party. Fridays and Saturdays go first.
The bar seats ten and is the natural place to open — cocktails while the room fills and the last few arrive — before everyone moves to the table.
If the reception is happening somewhere else, we cater off-site to homes and offices across New York for 15 to 50 people, with three days’ notice.
Your names on the menu
Both names run in script across the top of the menu, with the date beneath if you would like it there. There is no charge for it, one waits at every place setting, and it is the piece of the evening people take home.
The cake, the flowers, the decoration
We can coordinate the cake, the decoration and the flowers. It is the part of a reception nobody should be chasing themselves in the week before a wedding, and there is no reason for you to be the one making those calls.
Tell us what you have in mind on the planning form — the colors, the cake, whether you want the room dressed or left as it is — and we will come back with the details alongside the menu.
If you would rather bring your own cake, bring it: it is plated at $6 a guest, and the kitchen will have plates and candles standing by. A bottle you have been saving is welcome too — corkage is $30 a bottle for wines that aren’t on our list or that come from your own collection.
Feeding a mixed room
Mixed tables are the norm here. The vegetarian side of the menu is long, our chicken and lamb are halal, and the menu also includes pork, so the kitchen is not fully halal. Tell us who is eating what and we’ll build the order around it; the allergy menu lists every dish and what it carries.
Drinks can be settled in advance — one signature cocktail, beer or glass of wine per guest, pricing on request — which is simpler than fifty separate tabs at the end of a night that is already long enough. The rest of the bar list stays open behind it.
The Munkey House Paanch, our communal punch, can be poured in a bowl that serves twelve, which is a better centerpiece than most things you could hire in. ‘Punch’ comes from paanch, the Hindi word for five, after the five ingredients in the original.
Questions, answered
Tell us about your reception
Send the date and the headcount. The cake, the flowers and the printed menus we can carry from there.