One Wednesday evening, Diandra Soares just wanted to chill. No blaring music, no people stepping on her toes, no place where getting a drink would take an hour or a boring, staid dinner is offered. Soares just wanted a place where she could put her feet up, sit back and listen to Karunesh's instrumental music or soft rock and munch on some starters. Or even take a quick puff at the hookah as she caught up with friends and let her hair down. The 25-year-old model, unlike a teeny bopper, did not want to go to regular night clubs or fine-dining restaurants dotting Mumbai. "I can't handle the overbearing music and overbearing people at these places anymore," says Soares. So she headed for a lounge bar.

MOCHA CHILL FACTORS: Brocade cushions on low sofas, smoke of fruit-flavoured hookahs, over 20 wines, dimly lit lamps and Karunesh and Midival Punditz in the background.

Soares is not the only one giving clubs and restaurants the go-by. On his first visit home from the US, Roshan Paul, 24, wanted to catch up with friends and family he had left behind. Accompanied by a cousin he made their way to Hypnos, a lounge bar in Bangalore. There they sparked up a water pipe and took turns inhaling its piquant smoke and hung out for a few hours in the dimly lit environs. Paul, known to be a party animal in his teens, seems to prefer such places and is keen to try five other lounge bars in the city-the Cosmo Village, I-Bar at the Park Hotel, 180 Proof, Opium and the FTV's F-Bar and Lounge.

These bars are popular not just on weekends but even weekdays. A Tuesday night outside the Karma Lounge Bar at Grant Road, Mumbai. The scene is familiar. "Half-an-hour to get in," complains one would-be patron. An employee shrugs apologetically. Sounds of lounge music and the smell of fruity smoke waft into the street. Some decide to leave, but others choose to wait it out. The big attraction? The chance to smoke a bubbling Middle-East hookah, listen to music, try caviar pate and sushi and slide deep into comfortable bean bags.

The riotous glam of the 1970s and '80s disco has given way to the safer elegance and glamour of the '90s nightlife niche, the lounge bar. Intimately tempered and luxurious, they woo you out into the evening and the good ones make you feel right at home. The recipe is simple: mix comfortable and low seating with lounge music, its volume turned down, from a nightclub. Add spectacular starters from a fine restaurant and the pleasure of smoking from hookah cafes, plus cocktails and alcohol from a pub. Viola, you have a lounge bar. What they allow is conversation, networking and also everything quickly on your table.

Its forerunners are bars like Rain, Indigo and Olive in Mumbai and Senso in Delhi whose success proved that the urban hip wanted a pub to crawl into but was not willing to pay five-star prices. But he wouldn't walk into just any other bar either. A notch above the regular watering hole and yet not as expensive as the five-star pub, the lounge bar is bridging the gap between the snooty and the PLEB. Each has a USP. The differentiating factors are the ambience, the logo and the music it plays. While Karunesh and Buddha Bar may play at Karma Lounge, Bangalore's I-Bar may extend to playing soft rock. While high-backed chairs and cushioned settees play a part at Hypnos, a range of starters and finger food eaten easily from low-slung tables may tempt you at Mumbai's Lush. Athena in Mumbai may sport candles and celebrities and is called the country's hippest lounge address in a survey conducted by the BBC. And FTV's Bar in Bangalore is all about ultra-modern decor whose fixtures include hi-tech LCD panels on tabletops.

MOCHA CHILL FACTORS: Brocade cushions on low sofas, smoke of fruit-flavoured hookahs, over 20 wines, dimly lit lamps and Karunesh and Midival Punditz in the background.

MOROCCAN TENT CHILL FACTORS: Hookahs, finger food, music and comfy seating for about 20 people make this hangout at Bandra's Olive Bar and Cafe a niche place

KARMA CHILL FACTORS: Choose sushi or caviar pate as you slide into bean bags amid red candles. DJs Suketu and Nikhil Chinappa spin some lounge and house tracks.

The buzz is being created by the crush of such bars across the country. In Mumbai, which can now be called a lounge-o-polis, eight lounge and specialty bars jostle for attention with the newest trio-Provogue, Lush, and Brew Bar-on one street, now aptly called Senapati Boulevard instead of Senapati Bapat Road. Fine restaurants in the city are also making provisions for lounges. FTV, which recently opened bars in Bangalore and Delhi, plans to add 18 more across the country.

Olive has the Moroccan Tent just outside the main restaurant. It can seat 15-20 people, has lounge music, starters and hookahs. Rain goes a step further to create an ambience within the restaurant with candles and percussionist Shivmani performing live on most days. Even newly opened Caliente has a separate area for those who want to chill and then later gravitate to the dinner area.

Delhi will soon see the inauguration of Q Bar. At 12,000 sq ft it is dubbed the biggie among bars there. The latest spot in the capital, Opus Lounge in Basant Lok, is also finding many takers.

The market is expanding to look beyond "the Page 3 type" or teeny boppers as potential pub patrons. Consider, for instance, Opus Lounge that positions itself as a place for "those above 30", and carrying the cliche tag, "for the young at heart". Perhaps it was taking a cue from Maurya Sheraton's Dublin which didn't take off as expected. "There are enough people in Delhi who want to have a quiet drink and not go out to a teeny-bopper bar," says Ranjan Bakshi, who organised the launch party and had a host of corporate chiefs making an appearance.

As discerning customers get tired of nightclubs and five-star restaurants, for the restaurateurs switching to lounge was a necessity rather than a choice. Says Chirag Doshi who converted his up-market Karma Restaurant in Mumbai into a lounge and has big plans to take the concept across the country: "Today, there aren't enough people who want to party. If Fire and Ice is rocking one day, the next day the same teeny-bopper crowd moves to Insomnia, and Fire and Ice is empty." Agrees Niraj Rungta of Fire and Ice, Mumbai, who says lounge bars have not yet made a difference to the crowd that parties: "My target group is 18-24-year-olds. Lounge bars, though, target the older lot who have partied when they were younger."

So where does a lounge bar fit into a party animal's life? Timmy Narang of Lush puts lounge bars as a necessity for people who are looking for a home away from home. "It is a must for most social animals who want to go out every night. Very soon the city will be dotted with them," he predicts, after having spent two years putting together the chrome-and-white lounge. While most see it as a single destination which offers everything, Salil Chaturvedi of the Provogue Lounge Bar sees it as a before-nightclub destination: "We are helping people network or simply talk in the right atmosphere before they decide to rock and live it up." Not to miss, it adds to the extension of the Provogue brand as he plans to open lounge bars in Delhi and other metros.

What's more, the accent on comfort is spilling to other areas too. Hookah Joints in Mumbai, Goa and Pune as well as Mocha, one of city's popular coffee and wine bars, have as many teeny boppers as 27-40-year-olds who want to chill out. And high-end restaurants find that their Champagne Brunches help them rake in moolah. Explains A.D. Singh of Olive: "Getting a reservation on a Sunday morning is becoming increasingly tough." Sundays at sports bars with big screens showing Formula 1 have young-at-heart like adman Prahlad Kakkar, columnist Anish Trivedi and model-actor Milind Soman getting into the act.

Some feel that the new bars in town, however enthusiastic, are confused about where they want to go. And their "USPs" turn out to be run-of-the-mill. Says Hardy Mitra, who once ran Soul Kitchen in Delhi: "Niche bars are quite a thing abroad. Though the market is getting savvy and people want to replicate the success in India, there is not enough of a clientele to sustain it." He takes the example of Ajay Jadeja-owned Senso, which with its luxurious if flashy white sofas and test-tube flower vases, originally positioned itself as a "lounge bar". But soon, on popular demand it moved away from lounge, Buddha Bar music and was playing everything from Balle balle to Kaanta laga as the night progressed.

Whether niche bars will be able to live up to their names or not, the urban pubber has never been hic, hic, happier.