Try this cafe for veg dishes and out-of-the-world desserts in Chennai

CHENNAI: Located on one of the busy lanes of Anna Nagar, the new branch of Mayflower Cafe and Bakery is set up with contemporary aesthetics. Tejasvi Suresh Bala and Siressha Madhavi started Mayflower inspired by their passion for travel and culture. “We aim to serve comfort food across the globe,” says Tejasvi. The cafe’s name, Mayflower, is a tribute to the first tree that was at their first branch.

Recently, the cafe has expanded with two new branches in Anna Nagar and Egmore. The distinctive feature is that both the places have completely different ambiences. Anna Nagar has a minimalistic design, while the Egmore branch is located in a heritage property surrounded by tranquillity and greenery.

Talking about sustainability in the food business, “In the culinary industry, everything is evolving. To sustain, we have to be on the trend. The major challenge is to keep up with the rapidly changing expectation of the customers,” shares the 33-year-old. The manager of the cafe, Chandrasekar Gajapathy, adds that apart from great food, people expect instagrammable ambience to hang out with friends.

Chef Ezhil Raj states, “Initially we started with continental cuisine. As pan-Asian cuisine was gaining momentum in Chennai, we carefully curated selective dishes and added them to the menu. We try to offer delicacies with authentic flavours and not change the ingredients to match the local palette.”

We visited the Anna Nagar branch and started with the roasted pumpkin soup and garlic bread. The crispy lotus stem was crunchy and had a balance of spicy and sweet levels. The sauce of the Korean fried chicken was good with an apt amount of spiciness but the meat could have been more tender. The chicken gyoza with ponzu had succulent meat and the three dips are a must-try. The cream cheese dumpling also aced our list.

Khow suey is a popular Burmese food and it tasted good. The major put off was the Moon fun fried rice as the egg overpowers the taste. The cheese sauce in chicken cordon bleu was heavenly. The meat too was overcooked. Overall, it is the vegetarian dishes that are worth a try in this restaurant.

Oh! Not to forget the desserts. They are top-notch. Tiramisu’s coffee flavour and igloo on fire’s condensed milk and chocolate mousse inside a chocolate shell tasted divine. Had the meats been given extra care, Mayflower would have been one of our most recommended restaurants in town.