The Kolkata café scene is seeing a lot of diverse cuisines coming in to enhance the gastronomic scene in Kolkata. Milee Droog Coffee & Bistro was one of the earliest international cafeterias to be launched in the city that offered connoisseurs a taste of offshore delicacies. After a successful four year stint however, the bistro temporarily shut its doors when the world came to sudden pandemic imposed hault. However, as words have it everything happens for a reason and we believe this brief hiatus only prepared the much loved cafeteria to come back in a bigger and better way.
Milee Droog’s newest outlet near Deshapriya Park is a sight to behold and has made a magnanimous shift from an indoor nook within the Russian Cultural Centre at Gorky Sadan to a grand century old three-storied heritage building reminiscing glories from the past. The grandeur of authentic Romanian architecture instantly catches anyone’s attention passing by the bistro, while the interiors amplify the art deco culture with a gold-hues twist at every nook and corner. The bigger and better Milee Droog Coffee & Bistro can accommodate a whopping number of 210 people at one go and has multiple indoor and outdoor segments spread across the three floors. Keeping in mind the need of a private dining area for special occasions, a glass enclosed seating arrangement replete with comfy sofas and rose gold accents, along with indoor plants and flowers has also been curated on the first floor. A giant screen placed strategically is visible from all the floors and intends to keep customers hooked with live game streams along with time to time screenings of Russian documentaries and videos. A recent unwinding session at the newest Milee Droog outlet allowed us to immerse in some Slavic goodness on our plates.
Even though the menu boasts of a variety of familiar dishes and palates with an in-house twist, we were particularly interested in tasting some authentic Russian delights. To prep our palates we started off with a plentiful portion of Russian Blinis that visually replicate our very own Bengali patishapta. This savoury Russian cousin of the Bengali pancakes oozed out ham and cheese with every bite and tasted like a piece of heaven when paired with horseradish cream. The Classic Kotletis too are a Russian favourite and include Chicken cutlets served with garlic mash and mustard sauce. If you are looking to sip on some warm bowl of love to do away with the nip in the air, we suggest you order the Siberian Pelmeni which is basically dill butter tossed dumplings served in their own stock with sour cream. Moving on to the mains, you may settle for the Russian Shashlik- a lamb delicacy served in skewers or Hummus B’Lameh including zatar pounded meat, paprika hummus and pita bread. Pan Seared Salmon however stole our hearts with its tender, fresh pink core served on a bed of couscous, caponata, pommes puree and straw zucchini. A mocktail named Refreshing Rose is a healthy way to wash the flavours down before each order with its tender coconut base. For a unique sweet conclusion Sugarless Orange Crème Brule poses as the perfect candidate.
Price for Two: Rs. 1600