New Delhi, Aug. 8 -- Akhila Srinivas recalls that the two things she associated with Bengaluru during her college days were beer and music. In the 1980s and 1990s, long before pub culture became mainstream in India, Bengaluru was a rock and jazz hot-spot, with bars like Pecos, Styx and Purple Haze serving up a heady mix of music and Kingfisher beer. So when a spot opened up at the Courtyard, a community space run by her within a repurposed old home that hosts a number of restaurants, cafes and bars in seemingly impossible nooks and crannies, she and her team zeroed in on recreating this, but doing something "a bit unexpected" with it.

The result is the Middle Room, a music-forward bar inspired by Japanese kissas or listening rooms: intim...