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Araku Coffee, Indiranagar, Bangalore: Revisited on 05/08/2022
The ladies who lunch, if you notice, have also taken to doing breakfast with the bunch. They have little faith in the Wildean epigram that ‘Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast’ and consider it utterly cool to dive into their morning wardrobes, put on nude lips and head out for a cortada and cruffin with the girls. Eggs are permitted, too, if you’re not vegan, that is.
I’ve quite come to enjoy breakfast catch-ups myself. It’s far better than dithering over whether to eventually succumb to the execrable nachos after the second wit bier and feeling the pain of cab drivers cancelling on me on Saturday nights. So, breakfast it was at Araku Coffee on 12th Main, Indiranagar.
The space is clean and white and stylish, like a photo from a Scandinavian interior decor magazine. And you can pick up an expensive moka pot from the displays, if you wish. First, coffee. I had the Araku micro climate brew from medium-roast beans. It would take a trained coffee taster to get the strawberry, grape, cocoa and olive notes the menu promised; I was happy to drink a cup that tasted strong and fresh and woke me up. There’s a new line-up of breakfast dishes at this café and I was drawn to the Oyster Omelette. Memory can enhance or detract from the enjoyment of a dish. I was remembering the fluffy-crisp Singapore hawker market item. The Araku version was an omelette topped with bits of fried oyster. They were slightly oversalted, but the omelette was perfectly fine and there was nice sourdough on the side. My companion had the Scrambled Toastie, the perfectly done eggs topped with a slice of meaty grilled mushroom.
The chef, Rahul Sharma, who’s commitment to using local, seasonal ingredients borders on the obsessive, recommended the White Butter Croissant, made with cultured butter produced in-house. It lived up to its reputation as did the chocolate-filled one. The real indulgence of the morning was the Damask Rose, a tart with a rose-infused custard filling and a topping of petals arranged so beautifully, it cried out for an Instagram post. Araku is a good spot to spend a pleasant morning, particularly appealing to the hipster set. The more mundane breakfast eater is bound to find joy in MTR’s idli-vade.
