Ooo this one’s gonna read like a sip of chilled beer on a lazy afternoon, crisp but leaving an afterthought.
🍹When Space Serves You Better Than Even the Starter | Notes from a Travelling Professor in Hyderabad
I’m currently on a short holiday in Hyderabad—a city that has its own rhythm, somewhere between mehfil and metro.
As someone who travels not just by geography but also by curiosity, I have a personal ritual: find one place that surprises me. Not by grandeur, but by how it makes me feel.
This afternoon, that surprise was Makau Kitchen & Bar in Jubilee Hills.
I walked in expecting just another trending bar, maybe some Instagrammable lighting and predictable noise.
What I found instead was space.
Not just physical space—though the place is wide, relaxed, and beautifully laid out with vibrant teal and maroon chairs that look like they came straight from a lazy Sunday sketchbook—but mental space.
The kind that lets conversation stretch, thoughts wander, and time slow down just enough to notice the small things.
Like how the ice in the glass catches the afternoon sun.
Or how laughter from another table blends effortlessly with the sound of the fan overhead.
Or how sometimes, paying a little extra is just paying rent for a moment you’ll remember.
Yes, it is a bit expensive. But here’s what I’ve come to believe:
You don’t pay for food and drinks. You pay for the quality of life in that one hour.
The starters were genuinely good—packed with flavour, plated like someone cared.
The drinks complemented the conversation (or the silence, if that’s what you’re after).
Service was easygoing, not overly attentive, which I appreciate more than I admit.
What really struck me is how this place doesn’t try too hard.
It doesn’t shout for attention. It simply creates an environment where you don’t want to rush through your meal or your thoughts.
As a travelling professor, I often write about lessons from journeys: logistics, mistakes, serendipity, and philosophy on wheels. Today’s lesson was simple:
Sometimes, what we need is not another place to visit, but a space to pause.
Makau gave me that.
A soft corner on a busy holiday.
An unplanned reminder that pleasure can also be spacious.
Would I go back? Yeah. Not for adventure, but for something rarer nowadays—ease.
– Romantic Rakesh, currently exploring Hyderabad one thoughtful sip at a time
