It’s Butter Coffee Time: We’ve Never Seen A Better Looking Cafe Doing Healthy Food!

Garden House Cafe in Shahpur Jat is only a few-weeks-old but is shaking things up in the health food department. With a rooftop garden and an all-white cafe, it’s that good-looking gym boy who always full of advice on food that’s great for you.

Soon as you climb the steep staircase {that’s your first fitness test begins here, joked the owner} up to this tiny gem, be prepared to enter to envelope yourself in calm. The music is mellow and every table has a bell to call the server or ask for the bill, so you’ll never find the wait staff hovering around. See, it’s really the details that make this cafe such a sweet escape.

Don’t go expecting a huge place but a cosy nook where space is utilised rather well with all the mirrors, blackboard menus and retro wall hangings. The homely set-up combined with a menu that’s experimental {without being outrageous}, made us sit around longer and order a lot more than we intended on eating before we got in.

The cafe is Aditya’s baby. His long career as a gym manager {he’s worked at Rahul Dev and Milid Soman’s gym in Delhi} comes in handy when we explains the menu or talks about clean eating. So, when talks soul food, he means it.

We tried the Coconut Iced Cappuccino, which had the lingering flavour of tender coconut and was just as strong, so we felt refreshed but not over-excited. The GreenR cold-pressed juice came with a spicy zing, thanks to all the good, green stuff like jalapenos, kale, spinach, ginger, celery and more.

Their pasta Arrabiata was one of the freshest and lightest we’ve had in a while. The portion was enough for an average-size appetite, but – because we’re not that -we followed up our order with hummus and pita. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice the accompanying sauteed veggies were, and the pita pockets that filled us up without making us feel numb with the calories.

We were startled to find a certain butter coffee that came with ghee in it. If you’re looking to put on weight, go for it, but we skipped it because we’re on the other end of the spectrum. Other things on the menu include grilled meats and subzis, protein boxes, salads, coffee, muesli and granola bowls, eggs and an Indian breakfast. This means it’s an equally rewarding place for those who aren’t looking to cleanse their chakras or are on a crazy KETO, but also for someone who mildly likes healthy food.

The only thing that we wish was better was the rooftop garden. Maybe it’s just us, but we’d rather be surrounded by live plants and less kitsch. We were pretty vocal about this, too, and we are hopeful that things might change for the better.

The cafe is also a co-working space, and will start hosting live music soon. It’ll all go really well with that Paneer Steak {yes, don’t laugh cuz it’s a thing}.