New Delhi, Oct. 9 -- Chandigarh is a very small city, so to draw in locals over and over is a challenge," says Akshay Verma, co-founder and managing director of VTC Group, a Chandigarh-based hospitality company that operates the rooftop bar Tulum, the pan-Asian restaurant Tin Tin, and the all-day cafe TuBu. The restaurateur recently opened an Italian restaurant called Tremor and revamped an existing bar, The Back Room, into a retro-chic cocktail lounge.

It's a pour-only bar, that is-there's no shaking, stirring, and behind-the-counter theatre. Instead, cocktails are pre-batched to precise recipes, many of which involve techniques such as fat-washing, cryo-filtration, long infusion, etc. In Chandigarh, where the bar culture largely revolv...