Ever thought of having unlimited pizzas, burgers, nachos, falafel and the like without compromising on the nutritive component? Maybe not. But what if a café that promises to serve you the same delicacies without foregoing the taste and also the health of the consumer?
Ishta café is one of a kind cafeteria that essentially focuses on food that is light on the stomach and also on the pocket. With the mantra ‘Feel light’, the café prepares a variety of millet made pizzas (called Humble Pie) and many other delicacies made with millet such as - wraps, quesadillas, cheesy tacos, burgers, dosa, paddu, chats and many more. To slip and slurp there are fresh fruit juices-made in slow RPM to extract the essence of the fruit without harming its nutritional value and Lemon Herbal Tea (a special drink made of herbs and lime).
“Our speciality is Indianising and milletising the food from across the globe. For example, falafel, an Arabic dish is prepared by us with millets and whole wheat pita bread. The reason behind using millet predominantly is that they are low on Glycaemic Index, high in fibre content and are grown in arid conditions and thus are sustainable to grow”, says Vinayak Gajendragad, co-founder of Ishta Café.
Talking about the popular dishes among the diners, Vinayak says, “For our most popular dish, there is a tie between Humble Pie and cutlets.
Depending on the customers’ preferences we recommend either of these two or Falafel. We also have a rotating menu concept where we pick up set of 10 odd dishes from the main menu we have and keep changing every day. This does not bore even the regular customers.”
Vinayak, a mechanical engineer by profession worked for corporate giants for nearly two decades. He stayed abroad for a while but quit his job three years back and returned to his native. Soon after quitting his job, Vinayak started his second innings with organic farming near Talkad. That’s where he started Astitva Naturals-an organic grocery and vegetable market initiated by Vinayak in 2016.
Next in line was an eatery. In the same year, Vinayak who was inspired by Sadhguru’s philosophy, along with his neighbour Asmita, a culinary artist and cooking enthusiast- started the eatery which not only talks about healthy food but also gives great taste to customers. Vinayak highlights that ‘Astitva Naturals’ is the mother firm of ‘Ishta Café’as most of its ingredients comes in from the former.
“There are multiple challenges in running a restaurant and more so when you run a parallel stream restaurant. But the journey has been very exciting and gives us immense pleasure when our customers come up to us praising our food We also learnt that the packaging of the products matters more than the content itself but if the content is made with our heart and soul in it with good intention, it is loved even more.”