Located bang opposite the Great Kebab Factory and alongside ICICI Bank, Cafe Style (or Cafe $tyle as they call themselves) is the latest entrant to Sector 18, having opened it’s doors just 3 days back. Naheed and I visited the place for a quick lunch.
It is quite an interesting place really, what with outdoor seating (which could be improved with some fancy awnings and more large potted trees to shield guests from the eyes of passer-byes)and comfortable lounge seating indoors. A whole wall of glass and a well thought through seating plan gives it a very airy, open feel, a lot unlike many other cafes who try to cram as many tables as possible in an already cramped space. The kitchens are open, and they have these little touches all over that seem to say someone has put a fair amount of gray matter to work. The on-table condiments for example – Heinz sauce, Tabasco and French’s mustard + fresh ground pepper in the shakers. Agreed, they don’t cost much, but the tempation to foister inferior stuff (like ready processed ground pepper) on to an unsuspecting public definitely has its takers. The music is soft and unintruding, and they have red tube lights.
Red tube lights??? Taking creativity a little too far I’d say.
The other little things I liked were the woven basket of newspapers (I *cannot* eat without something to read alongside and this a definitely endearing touch for me), availability of baked goods, pies and cakes to order and so on. The menus and interiors were designed by the owner, Chetan Malik, who is a chef himself, in consultation with Chef Manu.
Coming to the menu – they have two. One spiral bound and the other bound with nuts and bolts. Yup, you read it right – nuts and bolts. Heavy and impractical (you can’t read part of the menu), I failed to see the theme link. Nutty! One is a beverages menu and other is a food menu. The beverages on order are standard, but they seem to have covered all the choices – teas, coffees, juices, smoothies, milkshakes, aerated drinks. They also have home made ice cream, which we didn’t try, but will do so another day. The second menu covers breakfast (they’re open from 8:00am to 12 midnight), soups, burgers & sandwiches, meals, pastas and desserts.
Their food options are quite interesting and it is a pleasure to see a menu that doesn’t go ‘baaa’. Only thing is, they’ve kind of priced themselves out of the casual walk in market for this sector. I may be wrong and it would be interesting to see what response they get.
We ordered a cappuccino (INR 55), black coffee (INR 40), grilled mezze platter (INR 125) and a Grilled White Cheddar Smoked Chicken and Caramelised Onions Sandwich (175). Interestingly, the vegetable mezze platter was more expensive here. Perhaps we’ll try that one of these days.
The coffees we normal, with Naheed commenting that it was less creamy than most other places (like Barista and Cafe Coffee Day), which was good (he likes it less creamy). The mezze platter was a bit of a disappointment. It included 7 thumbnail sized pieces of grilled, spiced chicken, 5 larger pieces of smoked chicken and perhaps two tablespoons of spiced green and black olives in oil. I believe a mezze platter should be more representative and include other staples like falafel too, but then that’s me. The sandwiches were served with fries, wedges, a salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, white onions in thousand island). There were three small (3 inches long) mini sub type sandwiches to a platter, each of which were topped with caramelised onions. The onions seemed to be more burnt than caramelised, but tasted good nonetheless.
They charge a service charge of 10% (it’s becoming the fashion these days) and including VAT, our bill of INR 395 went up to INR 484. I quite liked the meal, but again, it is a bit expensive and food on offer may be slightly niche. On to the matter of the service charge. When will Indian restaurants learn that submissiveness and subservience does not good service make. They seem to think that a good amount of bowing and shuffling justifies a service charge. Unfortunately, even though it’s being run by a Chef, Cafe Style too isn’t quite able to make that distinction.
Did I mention they have seating on the first floor too. Quite dimly lit, dreary and bland, I don’t think I’ll be going upstairs anytime soon, except of course to visit the W.C., which has some interesting gender indicators on the door. Since this is a ‘family’ blog, I’ll refrain from describing them here.
I do hope Cafe Style stays around, since I plan to visit them fairly often. Having said that, will it give you bang for your buck? Certainly not, though their menu is interesting and the food fairly good.
- Sid
PS: As much as I like the place, their website (cafestyle.asia) is probably one of the example I would use in how *not* to design a website – no page title, totally built in flash, no pre-loader, text in some areas is populated by the Macromedia Flash default text, clicking on anything makes it load a very boring pre-routine – at which point, I gave up. I’d say, they’ve messed up big time here.
Update: Second visit, 29th December 2008: Ordered a hazelnut milkshake (wife pronounced it too sweet, Cherie said it was perfectt), Meat lovers salad (nice, but ordinary and the portions left something to be desired) and the same grilled white cheddar sandwich as the last time, inside which I received a complimentary hair. I’ve noticed some of their line cooks doing their stuff without wearing headgear, which really should be mandatory at all times in the kitchen.
Update: Third visit, January 4th 2009: Popped in for a quick drink. Ordered a cappuccino and an apple ice tea. While the drinks were good, I couldn’t help but wonder why it takes a cafe more than 10 minutes (by the clock) to serve a cup of coffee (from a machine) and an ice tea, that in all probability is made from powder, ice and water… and this is when the place was *empty*.
No more updates, I promise.
Update: March 17th, 2008: Dropped by for a quick coffee while waiting for a friend. The price of coffee is now higher than most of their walk in competitors. Service standards have fallen. The television and the music system both blare at the same time, which was not fixed despite 4 requests. Staff look and behave like you should be waiting on them. All in all, Cafe Style had a run of good service for a while, which seems to be at an end now.
That sounds an interesting place, will you go there again?
We ate at a local restaurant last night for New Year, with friends and we decided to partake of the buffet. Such a bad decision, it was so mediocre, not spicy and definitely not heated properly.
On the plus side, I am reading a book called Eating India by Chitrita Banerji who now lives in New England but did a gastronomic tour of India. I’m just reading the chapter on Delhi which is very interesting.
Hello Toni, Yes, I will probably (and already have) be visiting again. They fulfill what to my mind, is a ‘real’ cafe.
Sorry to hear about your new year buffet experience. How about a review? 
I haven’t heard of that book – will probably go get a copy and see what it’s all about.
In my openion i have grate time in cafestyle , i like the way of decoration they have done, i think now i only like to go in cafestyle rather then the other cafe like barista bqzi get the better quality there.
well i don’t think we should compare cafe style to costa and barista as everything is cooked fresh at cafe style whereas all these chains get factory packed food.
@Jav: I agree. I’ve yet to find a cafe that serves good, fresh food, with the exception of i’lario, which unfortunately has closed it’s doors. Having said that, Cafe Style needs to take a good, serious look at it’s prices, as it’s location depends largely on walk-ins and the prices are much too high for casual passers by.
I feel that this is a good place. Have been there a couple of times with different people and every time the cafe has outdone itself, be it family, friends or clients.
Everytime there is something new in the menu and I look forward to my visits to Cafe $tyle.
I chanced upon this review and felt compelled to try it out. Have been there thrice hence and not regretted it even once!! You can read my review at http://hct-thoughtexpress.blogspot.com/2009/02/cafe-style-opens-in-noida.html
Though the beer and cheese soup was interesting, it just was too filling for a soup! I highly recommend the Burgerabbia and the steak in pepper sauce (well done).
@Harnoor Channi-Tiwary: Glad you liked it. I’m surprised about your comments on the portions. Perhaps they’ve increased them, or maybe I didn’t try out those dishes. Perhaps another visit is due.
i just drop myself by chance at cafe style week back , prx were little higher on drinks as compared to food , but i had nice food & array of vintage collection which reminds of yeteryears .recomends bunny chow & fig browinie for sure.
i was at cafe style yesterday with a friend who recommended their burgerabia. In one word – brilliant! You get portions of fries and salad with it. The burger itself is enclosed within halves of toasted sesame pita and has smoked chicken, beef (buffalo), lettuce, fried eggs, caramelised onions and mayo. I loved it!
sid, luvd the review esp the regular updates. i agree on one specific point, they are slow on their feet… took 12min to get the bill and another 10min to get my card approval slip for signature. the food tastes good even when paying a tank for it thou…
cheers
well its changed a lot frm the day it opened,they have gone hitec…u get tab’s to read the menu and its a hooka place now,u cant smoke a cig.as hooka smoke is herbal they say??? i am lost fr words here. service is soooooo slow, it took half an hour to get me a plate of sandwiches and the tea u can forget abt it.the place also charges fr parking yr car..20 bucks.