Dhanraj Mahal

Walk north from the Gateway of India and South Mumbai changes key. Where the Edwardian bulk of Apollo Bunder gives way to the roundabout at Regal Circle, a long cream-and-ochre block curves along the pavement like a liner easing into harbour.

• This is Dhanraj Mahal, built in the 1930s for the Dhanrajgir family and credited to the Bombay practice of Gregson, Batley and King.
• It was among the city's first great apartment palaces — a single address that folded flats, offices and shopfronts into one continuous sculpted wall of concrete, and it still does.
• The drama lies in the geometry.
• Instead of a flat street frontage, the building sweeps in broad concave wings around a forecourt, so the facade seems to move as you walk past it.
• Corners rise in stepped, ziggurat-like tiers; horizontal string courses run the full length like speed lines; balconies turn in soft rounded ends with ship's-rail balustrades.
• Look closely at the cast metal grilles, the chevron and sunburst motifs, and the period lettering of the name, and you are reading the visual language that made Mumbai one of the world's great Art Deco cities.
• The famous inscribed ensemble of Deco frontages faces Oval Maidan and Marine Drive, a little to the north; Dhanraj Mahal belongs to the separate Colaba cluster, which is why many visitors walk straight past the best of it.
• Treat this as a pavement pleasure rather than a monument with a ticket.
• The building is private — apartments, offices and small shops — so admire it from the street, stay out of the lobbies and stairwells unless you have business there, and avoid photographing into windows.
• Early morning gives the cleanest light and the emptiest footpath; fifteen to thirty minutes is plenty.
• It slots naturally into a walk that takes in the Gateway of India, the curve of Regal Circle and the shops of Colaba Causeway.
• For food, the surrounding blocks reward a little care.
• South Mumbai is a seafood city as well as a great vegetarian one, and the two sit side by side on the same lane, so look for a clearly marked pure-veg board and confirm at the counter before you order.
• Udupi-style rooms around Colaba Causeway and Fort do reliable idli, dosa, uttapam and filter coffee; Gujarati and Rajasthani thali halls a short ride north towards Churchgate and Nariman Point serve unlimited vegetarian platters at lunch.
• Handcarts near Regal Circle sell vada pav, bhel and grilled sandwiches — ask whether the griddle is kept vegetarian, as some sandwich stalls also cook egg.