After conquering the world of music with his fiery tune, Badshah is conquering the pizza scene in Mumbai with his fiery pizzas at Bad Boy Pizza! Located in Andheri West, it is a cozy QSR that opened in July 2025. The establishment quickly became popular not just because of its association with the flamboyant singer-rapper, but also because of its innovative dishes like the viral Pushpa Pizza, Butter Chicken Dip, and more. unstumbled got a chance to not just put the hype to the test, but also to speak to the creative visionary, the head chef, of this establishment. Meet Chef Shahbaz Shaikh, the actual badboy behind the innovative dishes at Bad Boy Pizza!
In Conversation With Chef Shahbaz Shaikh Of Bad Boy Pizza
unstumbled: You trained under Michelin-level precision at Vetro inside The Oberoi. How did you balance your instinct from fine dining to build a fast-casual, celebrity-backed brand like Bad Boy Pizza?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: In fine dining, the concepts are stronger, and you get to understand the science behind cooking. I worked in an Italian restaurant, and my head chef was also Italian. He hailed from Rome, so his expertise was proper, authentic Italian food. However, his techniques were amazing, and I learned a lot of skills from him. These skills were by far the best part about my training under him. That’s why the menu at Bad Boy Pizza is a little different. Because I was able to incorporate my acquired skillset with the sciency, fine dining training to create novel delicacies here at Bad Boy Pizza.
unstumbled: How did you come up with unique ideas like the Khao Suey Pizza, Dabeli Garlic Bread, and other creative innovations?
As you know, there are a lot of pizza brands in India. The most common dishes every menu has are paneer makhani, chicken tikka, and butter chicken pizza. That made me wonder why we’re limiting ourselves to just these common Indian dishes. Why not try more such variants? Why not explore other Indian cuisines like South Indian as well? That’s why there’s a Kerala chicken pizza, Maharashtrian thecha, even Mumbai’s Dabeli.
unstumbled: Is there a “Vetro habit”, a technique, a discipline, a standard, that you’ve refused to compromise on even at QSR scale and speed?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: That’s a very good question. If you’ve worked in either Michelin or fine-dining, you are taught to keep the food as simple as possible. The reason is that the more complicated the dish, the more mise en place. Mise en place means the preparation or the setup you have to do. It’s supposed to be perfect every time. For instance, if you cut an onion, every piece of that onion has to be uniform. That is something I cannot change anywhere. For me, consistency is the key to expanding your business, and mise en place is how you achieve consistency.
unstumbled: What’s a flavor or dish you personally loved that you had to kill because it didn’t test well with the target audience?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: As a customer, when you eat a pizza, you feel unhealthy. So, you always want to stick a salad on the side. So, I made a Caesar salad pizza. Instead of croutons, the crispy element was the pizza base itself with the salad as the topping. It looked very beautiful and tasted great too. However, it did not work with the menu theme.
unstumbled: What’s the hardest thing to standardize in Indian QSR kitchens: ingredient quality, staff training, or consistency of technique?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: I would say our dough, probably. So, our dough is fermented for 48 hours. If you make the dough at 6 PM today, it will only be used after 6 PM two days from now. This requires a lot of mathematical calculations every day. The quantity of the dough we prepare depends on how much sales we made on that day. So all the calculations have to be done on the daily, which, I would say, is the hardest.
unstumbled: If Bad Boy Pizza didn’t have Badshah’s name attached to it, what do you think would be the one thing about the food itself that would still make people come back?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: Yeah, marketing is working beautifully with the Badshah name, but we have 60 percent repeat guests, as per our data. That means that people are coming back for the food, not for him. As a matter of fact, there are not one but two dishes which are the highest selling: one is the garlic butter chicken or cheese butter masala, and the second is the Pushpa pizza. The story behind Pushpa is very nice, actually. So, Badshah and co-founder Karan got me a thecha chutney. They’re like, can you make something out of this? And I really wanted to make a very beautiful-looking pizza. I remembered seeing a show where a chef made a pizza with edible flowers, and I was very mesmerized by it. So I thought I’d try something like that. When I finally made the pizza, Badshah said that we could call it Pushpa because it’s spicy but looks beautiful. And then, there are flowers on it, so the name was right there.
unstumbled: If someone tries Bad Boy Pizza once, what’s the one bite or flavor moment you want them to remember it by?
Chef Shahbaz Shaikh: The answer has to be the crust. The first bite you take, it’s super crunchy but also very airy. You don’t have to chew it multiple times. So, that’s something I want guests to remember, as that is the USP we have brought in our pizza.
Also Read: Amichi Review: A Cozy Pocket Of Italy Serving Authentic Neapolitan Pizza In Bandra’s Pali Hill
Is Badshah’s Bad Boy Pizza Worth The Hype?
After such a fun and invigorating conversation with Chef Shahbaz Shaikh, we definitely worked up an appetite. So, we decided to put the hype to the test, and here’s our unfiltered unstumbled review:
Garlic Bread With Butter Chicken Dip
This garlic bread was the stuff that a garlic-lover’s dreams are made of. The bread was warm, soft, and so garlicky, a vampire would have disintegrated in its presence. The accompanying butter chicken dip was incredible too. If, like us, you’re a hater of sweet butter chicken, you will love this dish. It is perfectly spiced and not overly sweet. The chunks of chicken are also very soft and tender.
Would We Order It Again? YES!
G-Faadu Garlic Bread
G-Faadu bread is for people who love extremely spicy food. There is also a challenge that if you finish the bread in 9 minutes, you don’t have to pay for it. While we didn’t take the challenge, we did order the spicy bread.
Look, we were warned MULTIPLE TIMES before we ordered this. But being hardcore spice-lovers, we thought we’d be able to handle it. Boy were we wrong! We barely managed to finish ONE (1) slice through teary-red eyes before devolving into fits of cough. To say that this bread is aptly named is perhaps the highest compliment we can pay to it; and this is coming from someone who eats the 3x Spicy Buldak Ramen for fun without breaking a sweat!
Would We Order It Again? Not unless we’re suicidal.
Lean Green Apple and Lime Fizz
This was a pleasant fizzy drink that helped alleviate some of the pain we suffered because of the G-Faadu garlic bread. It even had popping boba in it!
Would We Order It Again? Yes
Chicken Meh-Hee-Koh Pizza
We’re gonna be honest, the G-Faadu garlic bread did singe our taste buds. However, we enjoyed this pizza a lot. It was saucy, spicy, and cheesy, with exactly the kind of flavors that an Indianized palate would enjoy.
Would We Order It Again? Yes, absolutely
Tandoori Tikka Paneer Pizza
An impressive vegetarian option; we were pleasantly surprised by how good it tasted. However, we had so many other impressive dishes here that it sort of became unmemorable. To be clear, it is not a bad pizza by any means; it is just not the most impressive one here.
Would We Order It Again? Maybe
Butter Masala Bread Bowl Pasta
This was something that we were quite excited to try. The concept of bread bowls is not common in Mumbai, and if you want to try it, there cannot be a better place than Bad Boy Pizza. The pasta is well-cooked, the sauce is mildly spiced and well-flavored, and the bread is soft enough to chew but sturdy enough to hold the saucy pasta for a considerable amount of time.
Would We Order It Again? Yes, absolutely
Deep Fried Oreos
For dessert, Chef Shahbaz Shaikh recommended we try the deep-fried Oreos, so we went with his recommendation. While they were very tasty, we think that there are better dessert options on the menu. The Oreos themselves were good and had the texture of a crunchier waffle. It was served with a chocolate ganache that provided some much-needed moistness to the dish.
Would We Order It Again? Maybe
Also Read: TwentySeven Bakehouse Has A Goregaon Chapter; Here’s Our Honest Review
Final Verdict On Bad Boy Pizza
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The interiors of Bad Boy Pizza are exactly what you’d expect from something associated with Badshah. It’s flashy and loud without being gauche. There is a steady stream of Punjabi songs, not just Badshah’s, by the way, but also other singers like Diljeet Dosanjh. The staff is very friendly and helpful, and the food is fantastic! It is certainly worth coming back to again and again!
Address: Tarapore Chowk, 520, Adarsh Nagar Rd, opp. Nature’s Basket, beside Nuts and More, Highland Park, Andheri West
Timings: 11 AM to 2 AM
Cost: INR 1,200 For Two
Final Rating: 9/10
Also Read: A Sweet Appointment With Dessert Therapy Founders Harsh & Nisarg Shah
Summing Up
Badboy Pizza, a QSR by singer-rapper Badshah, is easily one of the best Indian-Italian pizza places in Mumbai. The dishes manage to nail the kind of flavors that Indian consumers would enjoy. Our conversation with Chef Shahbaz Shaikh was also very fun and insightful.
