Like La Folie Lab, Poetry by Love and Cheesecake is a cafe-patisserie hybrid. This new Bandra outpost has replaced the now-shuttered Khar branch of the four-year-old cheesecake chain, which also has stores in Lokhandwala and Powai. At its new location, Poetry, which is part dessert showroom and part comfort food destination, is up against fierce competition from neighbours such as Bombay Waffle Co., Bombay Salad Co., Theobroma and the recently-opened Sequel.
It seems like the week-old cafe xeroxed a page each from the menus at these eateries and assembled its own. They serve what is already in abundant supply along and around 33rd Road in Bandra: soups, salads, sandwiches, waffles and pancakes. The suburb’s cafe-hopping patrons will welcome the choice. We found enough on Poetry’s menu worthy of praise, barring surprisingly, its desserts. Their indulgent confections are the opposite of their neighbour Sequel’s butterless and sugar-free treats.
The pastry menu is an elaboration of what Love and Cheesecake already served. They’ve added plated desserts to their rotating selection of signature cheesecakes. Devil’s Desire (Rs150), one of the new confections, is a four-tiered decadence of Belgian chocolate marquise, coffee mousse, caramel and chocolate brownie. The dessert is shaped like a Magnum ice cream stick but less satisfying than one. The coffee was potent but so was the sugar in the dessert and if you take your daily cup strong and unsweetened, it’s best to avoid this.
The salted caramel layered cheesecake (Rs250), a Love and Cheesecake signature, tasted like Milk Maid spread over sponge, and was boringly unidimensional. In a rare case, we found ourselves favouring the salad over the dessert. Their black kale (Rs315), a four-ingredient salad, had a delicious anchovy dressing clinging to chopped kale over which was placed powdered almonds, aged gouda and parmesan. Kale and cheese may occupy opposite ends of the health food scale, but make for delicious bedfellows.
It’s easy to race through their deconstructed nachos (Rs130). Their corn chips, which tasted exactly like a bag of Cornitos sweet and spicy Tomato Mexicana flavoured crisps, were piled besides dollops of sour cream and guac spiked with truffle oil. On a morning that you’re repenting the previous night’s excesses you will want their croque madame (Rs415), a gut-busting stack of fried eggs over toast and multiple slices of ham all drenched in bechamel sauce.
The best part about Poetry’s sandwiches is the complimentary side of crisp and herb-flecked house wedges. The thumb-thick wedges, which had a thin, delicate crust, were impressively creamy. The potatoes accompanied the Portobello panino (Rs250) and the mushroom gravy-smothered chicken ciabatta (Rs230). Both were manageable portions, packed with sufficient filling and flavour. New vegetarians with a residual hankering for meat will especially find solace in the excellent Portobello sandwich smeared with earthy arugula pesto and loaded with fleshy slices of Portobello mushroom.The ciabatta was crunchy and the chicken, layered with cheddar and creamed mushrooms, was tender.
A dessert cabinet lords over the ground floor of the split-level cafe that faces the drab but always-bustling Mini Punjab. A unique display of shelves shaped like opened books brims with baguettes, doughnuts and croissants. It’s suspended from the ceiling over the pastries encased in a glass counter, thus forming one grand altar to carbs. During our visit, the pastel-toned cafe was empty as they’ve been fairly hushed about the opening. Go now when it’s quiet enough to sit and pen your thoughts or sonnets while noshing on the comforting grub.
Get: Mushroom gravy smothered chicken sandwich (Rs230); Portobello panino (Rs250); black kale salad (Rs315); deconstructed nachos (Rs130).
Skip: Devil’s Desire (Rs150); salted caramel cheesecake (Rs250).
Prices include taxes.
It is our policy to wait at least a week after an establishment has opened before we review it.
Poetry, Pali Darshan, opposite Mini Punjab, on the junction of 16th Road and 33rd Road, Bandra (West). Tel: 98199 35135. Open daily, from 8am to midnight. Get directions here.