An Address To Return To

For more than three decades, businessman Dadi Balsara’s home address was a hotel suite. Room 901 at Taj Mahal, New Delhi appeared on his passport and driving licence. The founder of the company behind Himalayan mineral water had made his home in the Versailles Suite, with views over the capital’s greenery. An address most people knew through a few nights’ stay or an evening out became the setting for much of his life.

Travellers had been coming to the site even before the Taj arrived. Writer and oral historian Sohail Hashmi recalled visiting relatives at Fonseca’s, the hotel that had previously occupied the site. He recalled a colonial bungalow with a partly sloping, green-painted roof, small chimneys and subdued carpets.

When Fonseca’s was demolished, Taj Mahal, New Delhi came up in its place and opened in October 1978. Also known as Taj Mansingh, because of its location at Number One Mansingh Road, in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi, it marked the Taj group’s arrival in the capital.

Architect I.M. Kadri designed the hotel, while Elizabeth Kerkar shaped its interiors. The Dholpur stone façade, domes, marble fountains and intricate jaalis drew from Mughal architecture. Anjolie Ela Menon created a mural for Haveli, the former Indian restaurant; when Varq replaced it, the mural was retained and the new restaurant designed around it. The hotel also houses R.K. Laxman’s caricatures of world leaders and public figures.

The impression was immediate. Food writer and columnist Vir Sanghvi recalled checking in shortly after the hotel opened and thinking, “This is going to wipe out every other hotel in Delhi.” Decades later, in a column for a daily newspaper, he summed up its place in the city more simply: “The hotel means too much to Delhi.”

Sanghvi’s words proved prophetic. The Taj group’s flagship in North India has become a place to stay, eat, meet, and conduct business, and has remained an integral part of the capital’s social, cultural, culinary, and political life over five decades.

In The Capital’s Company

Its location helped turn that early promise into something more enduring. “It was accessible. It was central,” writer and historian Rakshanda Jalil said. “Because of its location, it emerged as a cultural hub from the early days.” She recalled attending book launches, musical evenings and concerts at the hotel over the years. There were supper theatre evenings too, and, when the weather was good, lawn cookouts with well-known guests sometimes stepping in as chefs.

Its position near the institutions of government made it a natural address for visiting leaders, diplomats and business figures.

The Chambers, Taj’s invitation-only business club, came to the hotel in 1982, giving business leaders and policymakers a private space within what became one of the capital’s corridors of power. The Taj Club and business centre further established the property as a working address in the capital.

The hotel also became a setting for official visits and diplomatic occasions. In June 2007, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam presented the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the hotel.

The following January, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made it his base during an official visit. At a breakfast gathering organised by business chambers, he supported India’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. Upstairs, the arrangements were more personal: a masala omelette for his breakfast and decaffeinated tea for his wife, Sarah.​

Yet some of the hotel’s most important encounters were never official. Anmol Ahluwalia, Area Director–Operations and General Manager, said its lobby and public spaces held a parallel history.

“They have quietly hosted conversations between diplomats, artists, entrepreneurs and travellers from around the world,” he said. “Some guests can point to a specific corner and tell you exactly where they had a life-changing conversation.”

A Table Of One’s Own

Taj Mahal’s legendary food and beverage outlets have a fan following of their own, and regulars have plenty of anecdotes to share.

For food historian and author Pushpesh Pant, the association with Machan, the hotel’s 24-hour international coffee shop, the city’s first, began with a family lunch in 1979. His friend Ravi Tomar treated Pant’s eight-year-old son, Indrajit, to a jumbo hamburger at Machan. “Nothing elsewhere matched its size and succulence!” Pant said.

The coffee shop gave diners somewhere to go long after most restaurant kitchens had closed. Its champagne-and-caviar brunch later became another signature.

Sanghvi said Machan’s relatively accessible prices drew younger diners. House of Ming, meanwhile, “changed the way Punjabis looked at Chinese food.”

What made the restaurants endure was familiarity. Tapash Bhattacharya joined as a commis chef in 1982 and later became Machan’s chef-manager, spending 39 years at the hotel. He remembered friends sharing pots of coffee and couples waiting up to 45 minutes for a window table the staff nicknamed “I see you, you see me”. Years later, guests told him their parents or grandparents had got engaged there.

A grilled potato sandwich became a favourite of former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani, who liked it with Bikaneri bhujia. Bhattacharya remembered a 5 packet being fetched from a nearby shop. He even consulted regular diners before ordering new crockery. He wanted them to feel: “This is my restaurant.”

Making Room For Tomorrow

Such attachments mattered when the hotel underwent an extensive refurbishment. In 2018, the Indian Hotels Company secured the right to continue operating it for another 33 years through an auction.

Machan reopened in October 2020 with bamboo and cane décor recalling its original setting. Hungarian paloc soup and Kona coffee featured on the reopening menu. House of Ming reopened in May 2022; the wider transformation was completed in 2023. The hotel was awarded One MICHELIN Key in 2025 and retained the distinction in 2026, when it was again recognised among India’s One-Key hotels.

For long-time visitors, continuity can reside in small details. Jalil pointed to the red panels with Mughal-style motifs in the lobby as familiar elements that had remained recognisable through the hotel’s evolution.

“Guests rightly expect the finest contemporary luxury, but they also return seeking something familiar, something that feels unchanged amidst a rapidly changing city,” Ahluwalia said.

He recalled a guest who returned carrying photographs taken at the hotel over nearly four decades: first as a young couple celebrating their engagement, then at family occasions and eventually with grandchildren.

“The hotel appeared in every chapter,” he said.

For Balsara, Number One Mansingh Road became an address on his passport. For others, it kept appearing in family albums. They kept coming back, with more people to fit into the frame.

The Information

• Address: Taj Mahal, New Delhi, 1 Mansingh Road, New Delhi – 110011

• Keys: 213, comprising 146 rooms, 40 suites and 27 residences.

• Connectivity: Accessible from Indira Gandhi International Airport and New Delhi Railway Station. Transfer times vary with traffic and the airport terminal.

• Website: tajhotels.com