Predictable menus and repetitive culinary details have made dining experiences less adventurous and more a matter of fact.
But breaking that prosaicness is Unlocked, a food and entertainment zone that keeps you stimulated with creative games and an escape room, and plenty of food and drinks within its 3,000sqft area.
The escape room borrows from Alexandra Lionheart’s adventures and revolves around the premise of the British explorer who made her way to India in 1897.
It’s a narrative of revenge, black magic and an Indian Prince. To unlock themselves, a group of two to eight people have to find her necklace.
Unlocked also has a roster of over 130 board games. If you’re the kind who loves a good challenge, then try strategy games like Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico or the notoriously complex Terra Mystica.
There’s Carcassonne, a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it.
Quoridor, an abstract strategy game where the objective is to advance your pawn to the opposite edge of the board.
There’s Civilisation where players are tasked with guiding an entire civilisation with technology, economy, culture, and military, with four different paths to victory.
Exploding Kittens is a kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.
As for the decor, Unlocked is a big puzzle, much like a maze, with illusions to create confusion. It sucks you into its surrealness. Exaggerated geometric illustrations on the wall and abrupt partitions give rise to anticipation at every step.
“The interiors borrow from the works of Dutch graphic artist MC Escher,” says founder, Sanjali Nirwani.
“I am a little taken aback with the sudden explosion of digital media and how it’s taken over the lives of many millennials, causing them a fair deal of stress and anxiety. I’ve imagined Unlocked as a mini-vacation from screen-time.”
The food at Unlocked is motivated by her travels to Europe from where she gathered culinary trends.
“Our selection of small and large plates brings together a range of traditional classics and some creative avant-garde European, American, and Italian. Oh, and we have an Avocado story dedicated to our love for the fruit. If you’re here with a puppy, flip over to the paw-some treats in our Pooch-Patio menu,” says Nirwani, who has lived in more than 20 cities and four countries and has travelled to 30 countries owing to her father’s career in bureaucracy.
To open this kind of board game cafe and escape room was a brave decision, but an exhilarating one at that. Nirwani’s enthusiasm in board games began while she was doing her MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.
Here, she started playing with a multi-cultural group that used to connect over a game of Settlers of Catan late at night.
She was then placed with the Philips HQ at Amsterdam as a Business Architect. Here, she experienced her first escape room. That triggered the idea of taking this business idea to India.
Today, she has been nominated for the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list this year. Here’s to success and lots of adventure.
Where: Ground Floor, Unit 3, 32nd Avenue, NH-8, Sector 15, Part 2, Gurugram