Credit, some part of it at least, for the success of Colaba eatery The Table can go to the universe. Towards the end of 2007, Gauri Devidayal and Jay Yousuf, then 29 and 47 respectively, landed in Mumbai with broken hearts. Three years later, the tax consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and a man with his hands deep in the telecommunication business in California, ended up getting married three months before they’d open a restaurant despite no background in hospitality. Twelve years later, they are a team that is on top of this city’s F&B game.

Offering us a peek into their 15-year-long journey is their self-published title, Diamonds for Breakfast. “The idea was to write it to mark 10 years of the restaurant,” Devidayal, 42, tells us, adding, “But I was so naive that I thought it could be done in six months.” When former journalist Vishwas Kulkarni came on board in 2019, they knew the project was on its way to fruition.