You would rarely come across a space in the city that works as a café, a retail outlet, an event space, a co-working space as well as a training institute for baking and Ovensay is exactly the place that works as all five. Being the brainchild of Abhav Malhotra, a chef and food scientist, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in New York. The entire space is spread across three floors, with the ground floor working as a retail outlet. The second floor has the café and the training institute, while the third floor works as the event space, which also becomes a part of the café when there are no events. We wanted to check out this new café and so we headed there for dinner. We chose to sit on the third floor, which was lit up with a soft golden hue and the wooden tables and chairs along with lush green foliage made it a perfect spot for cosy or romantic evening.
We were welcomed with a cup of thick hot chocolate and that was the perfect start to the meal. We checked out their menu to decide on the next dish and fell in love with the names — quirky and with ample pop culture references. After quite the struggle, we zeroed in on Buns Hun, their version of Korean buns, which was stuffed with cream cheese and drizzled with chilli oil. The soft home-made buns were on point and the cream cheese was a perfect pairing. Next, we indulged in the Vegastic Platter, which featured their in-house breads and was served with four different dips (coffee, caramel, pesto and garlic). For us, the bread was more suited with the caramel dip. Then we decided to try out The One with the Meatball Sub. This was one of the dishes that Abhav was inspired to bring to his café, during his days in New York. Served with salted fries, which were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the sub had beef meatballs, mozzarella and jalapenos and was so filling that we only had space left for dessert.
Considering one always has an extra tummy for dessert though, we gave into our sweet tooth and opted for The One with Cheesecake, I’m Coconut(s) for Tresh Leches and I Tira-miss You. If you don’t mind having a dessert that is extremely coco-nutty, go for the Tresh Leches or else choose the cheesecake and the Tiramisu, which were both pretty delicious and the perfect end to our meal.
₹800 onwards for two. At Castle Street.
Email: alwin@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @al_ben_so