Yazdani Bakery

Yazdani Bakery
Yazdani Bakery
	Location within Mumbai
Restaurant information
Food type	Bakery and snacks
Street address	Fort
City	Mumbai
State	Maharashtra
Country	India
Coordinates	18°55′59″N 72°49′59″E / 18.933°N 72.833°E

Yazdani Bakery is an Irani cafe or Persian style bakery in Mumbai, India.^[1]^[2] As of 2023, it is a take-out establishment with the sit-down service closed.

History

If Mumbai has a heartbeat at breakfast, it thumps somewhere between the clatter of cutting chai glasses and the crackle of brun-maska. For more than seven decades, that rhythm has echoed inside Yazdani Bakery & Restaurant in Fort, an Irani café turned bakery founded and run by the Zend family. The blue and cream façade, the high ceilings, the vintage signboard with its old-world serif: everything signals continuity. Inside, the aromas of butter, yeast, and caramelizing crusts do the rest. Yazdani opened its doors in the early 1950s (formally 1953) when Meherwan Zend, an Irani baker with a boxer’s shoulders and a craftsman’s patience, took over an Irani restaurant at the very spot where Yazdani stands today and steered it into a full-fledged bakery. In an era before “artisanal” became a marketing adjective, he built a business on slow, manual methods and exacting standards. The oven's diesel-fired workhorses gave the loaves their signature crust and chew, while the counters filled up with pav, brun, khari, baguettes, fruit buns, and apple pie. In 2007, Yazdani received the Urban Heritage & Citizens Award, formal recognition of what regulars already knew: this was more than a shop; it was a piece of Mumbai’s living history. That balance of innovation and fidelity defines the “Yazdani taste.” The pav sits light but resilient; the brun gives way with that perfect crack; the khari shatters into buttery shards. There’s technique in every bite, but also memory: office-goers on tea breaks, students counting coins for buns, old regulars who sit a little longer because the room feels like home. Housed in a pre-war building (reportedly once a Japanese bank), the bakery’s interiors are a time capsule. Tourists arrive with camera phones; locals arrive with appetites; both leave with paper packets warm to the touch. Yazdani long ago transitioned primarily to take-out service; its social function endures an intergenerational handover point where you learn how your parents ordered breakfast, then repeat the ritual yourself.

Today, the baton is publicly acknowledged to be in the hands of the next generation, with family members such as Zyros Zend representing continuity and possibility. The subtext is clear: Yazdani will adapt as it always has, with small, careful changes that keep the essence intact. In a world that moves fast, the bakery’s greatest innovation may be its refusal to hurry. The warm ovens, steady hands, and quiet pride turn everyday loaves into tiny celebrations of home. As new mornings spill into Fort and old stories mingle with the smell of butter, Yazdani reminds us that some of the city’s sweetest comforts are the ones that rise, golden and simple, again and again.

In 2007, Yazdani received the Urban Heritage & Citizens Award, formal recognition of what regulars already knew: this was more than a shop; it was a piece of Mumbai’s living history^[3]^[4]^[5]

Japanese bank, which was later sold off.^{[citation needed]}That balance—of innovation and fidelity—defines the “Yazdani taste.” The pav sits light but resilient; the brun gives way with that perfect crack; the khari shatters into buttery shards. There’s technique in every bite, but also memory office-goers on tea breaks, students counting coins for buns, old regulars who sit a little longer because the room feels like home.

On 11 December 2007, Maharashtra governor SM Krishna presented the Urban Heritage & Citizens Award.^[6]