Craft Coffee, the 94-seater coffee experience centre located in Ballygunge, has turned one. Owned by coffee enthusiasts Abhinav Kumar and Dipraj Das, Craft Coffee has changed the coffee scene in the city with the experiences they offer. The Telegraph caught up with co-owner Abhinav over caffeine kicks and yummy food to talk about what makes the cafe a success, their upcoming plans and new menu. Excerpts...
When Craft Coffee opened it created a huge buzz and would have long queues. What do you attribute the success of this place to? Were there challenges?
When we opened this we were very positive about whatever we were going to do with coffee but the concept was challenging as we wanted to curate something in the next level of coffee. Therein came a lot of fusion coffee on the Craft menu while the contemporary stays. One main challenge was, there are so many levels due to which service took a hit initially. Hence we took a call that in the first few months we didn’t want any promotion of the place till the time we knew we could handle service without faltering. But one good thing that I should mention is the guests were patient with us, at least most of them, and they didn’t create a ruckus if there was a service issue as they would call the GRE (Guest Relation Executive) and explain what went wrong. On the plus side, now there is a strong relationship between the guest and GRE here, who knows what to get and which guest likes what. So that definitely worked towards the success of the place. We are also launching a loyalty programme called Craft Circle.
How did you manage to get this beautiful place?
This place was a staff quarter of Deborshi who owns the place. In four months’ time we conceptualised the place and Dipraj (Das) constructed everything — the glasshouse, bakery etc. The idea was to make an experience centre and make boutique cafes around it. We created this place based on that logic. We have a bakery, confectionery, there is a manual coffee brewing counter. You can see the method there.
Co-founders of Craft Coffee — Abhinav Kumar (right) and Dipraj Das.
You own another popular cafe in the city — Roastery Coffee House. While making this place, how did you ensure that Craft Coffee was not a copy of that?Roastery still as a concept is a large neighbourhood cafe serving artisanal coffee and we go by the logic of one cafe, one city. When we started the concept of Craft, a hub-inspired model where you create a hub, a mother base where you bring in all the elements which pair with coffee like chocolate and cheese, you showcase the experience to the guests and showcase the artisanal coffees as close to the neighbourhood as possible. For example, if I stay in Salt Lake I cannot travel to Roastery cafe every day for a good cup of coffee. So why should a person on that side be denied? We have just opened a boutique cafe in City Centre and opening in Sector V too. So what you are eating at the main outlet, which is here in Ballygunge, is a mini replica there. This will cater to everything in central and South Calcutta, the FD block experience outlet that we just opened will cater to Salt Lake and Rajarhat...
What are your future expansion plans?
We are opening in City Centre mall Patna, one in Bangalore in Indiranagar that is going to be the experience centre. We have been just lucky getting the correct locations, I guess! There is a Bhartiya City mall there where we have one boutique cafe and another in Jayanagar in Bangalore.
Tell us what’s new on the menu?
We have launched our cheese-based recipes called Affinage. This menu is an effort at curating some special dishes using cheese from Meraki Cheese and giving our guests an experience.
Then we have a coffee and cheese pairing thing along with a coffee-infused cheese! This is in the final stage of infusion and ageing, by mid of February we should be able to serve you this.
We have also introduced Criollo, which are chocolate bonbons that are filled with unusual fillings like guava chilli, raw mango that instantly take you down your childhood memory lane.
Busiest days: Saturday and Sunday
Busiest time of the day: Afternoon
Average crowd profile: Mixed; elderly and youngsters
Most popular beverage: Cascara Sangria
Most popular dish: Twin Pepper Chicken
Most popular section: Upper section on the terrace, overlooking the road below
Beetroot Carpaccio is a simple dish made with thinly sliced beetroot served with roasted nuts, arugula, avocado and chevre that goes great with beetroot.
Tomato Basil Baked Mozzarella is one of our fave from the new menu! Tangy and spicy oven-roasted pomodoro and basil with stretchy mozzarella and balsamic on top is served with a slice of freshly baked in-house bread. Yum!
Colourful Criollos will definitely surprise you with their unusual desi fillings inside.
Sip on a steaming Irish Coffee that has a strong wine-fermented espresso shot with a mildly sweet flavour of Irish cream.
