Recipe of survival: Bengaluru restaurants dilvulge trade secrets to tide over losses

BENGALURU:  The lockdown saw Bengalurueans don a chef’s hat, attempting to re-create their favourite restaurant’s pastas and pizzas. But as many put it, there was ‘something amiss’. Cashing in on this are city restaurants which are selling their secret sauce, cheese and pasta, which will give a restaurant feel to a home-made dish. And it’s a double win for restaurants that are slowly trying to recover from the heavy losses made during the pandemic. 

Anirudh Nopany, co-founder of Brik Oven, tells us that they have been getting a lot of enquiries about the cheese that goes into their pizzas. “Every cheese that is used in our pizza is made from scratch. We saw a lot people reaching out asking for it. This gave us an idea that we should give people the option of the making their own pizza at home.

The best part is that basic ingredients are taken care off, and they can customise it according to their tastes,” Nopany says, adding that the demand has been so huge that every day they are making cheese from around 600 litres of milk. The new product on their list is sourdough bread. “It is a much more healthier option than consuming mass-produced bread which are high on preservatives,” he says, adding that they have “reasonably priced” it at Rs 65.

This strategy, Nopany also mentions, has also helped them tide over the losses incurred during the pandemic. “Revenue from this might not be much, but it surely helps pay overheads like rent and salaries,” he adds Nopany. Not just Brik Oven, Justbe, a popular vegan resto cafe, has also come up a large option for breads. With Focaccia, French baguette, Country loaf and more, one will be spoilt for choice. “Even if people find it risky to dine in, they are comfortable ordering.

This model has been working really well for us,” says Nidhi Nahata, founder of the cafe. Apart from breads, other options on the menu are dosay batter and chutney powder at The Filter Coffee, Kalyannagar, and freshly-rolled pasta and homemade sauce by The Hole in the Wall Cafe, Koramangala. They came up with this plan in the month of April and have recently added ravioli to the list of pastas they are selling.

“Freshly-made pasta tastes completely different from the packaged ones that you get in supermarkets. Pasta-lovers can surely tell the difference. Homemade ones, if refrigerated, will last not more than one week since they have no preservatives. Also, the sauce is unique to us, since it’s our recipe, which brings you to the restaurant,” says Mathew Haris, one of the partners of the cafe.