HYDERABAD: A sunny afternoon at the newly renovated Farze Cafe on Jubilee Hills’ road no. 59, passed blissfully, amid beautiful walls, lip-smacking food, drinks that quenched more than just thirst and a classy ambience. What’s new, you ask? Well, everything, we’d say. Right from their interiors to their menu, Farzi has gone up and beyond to make customers want to be back again, relishing every bite and sip.
Sateesh Polkam, general manager, operations at Farzi takes us through the many changes the humble cafe has undergone. “We have about 40 new dishes that we have included to the existing menu. All these dishes were listed on the menu after a lot of experiments, deliberation and thought,” Sateesh tells us.
The cafe also has reworked its decor. It now welcomes you with an entire wall made to serve as a bookshelf with books of different genres. “Everyone who comes by can just pick up a book, order food and enjoy their much-needed space and calm. We also have a bar counter where you could order drinks of your choice from a variety of options to choose from. The very idea behind the ambience here is to make it a memorable experience where people walk in — so they will always remember Farzi for its calm and warmth. When people think quality time, we want them to think of us,” he tells CE.
After glancing through the pretty-looking interiors that are hard to take our eyes away from, we sit down to eat. An amuse-bouche awaits us — the tiny little thing was a pop that burst into a celebration of mango flavour in the mouth. It was followed by the Farzi Okay — an orange-flavoured mocktail that soothed the tastebuds. Then came an interesting lineup of appetisers that included chicken candy and palak patta chaat that is tastier than it sounds. We completed the main course with coconut rice and fish curry — a match made for the choicest receptors! The desserts here are an interesting mix of fruit, flavour and favourites — good to the eye and even better on the tongue.
Chef Massroor, who curated the menu talks about how he put the entire menu together. He says, “Almost 70 per cent of the menu now is new, I have personally experimented with all the dishes and especially had fun working around the desserts. Each has a trial and error process and we put the best five on the list. It took around 15 days to get the perfect dessert made of pistachio and rasmalai. It took that long because we wanted the right balance of flavours.”
One of the good things about the new Farzi Cafe is how their staff is trained about every little detail — from figuring out what makes their customers feel welcome to knowing every part of the menu well enough to educate those confused about certain items or ingredients on the menu.
“Most people do not know or even care about what goes into the food that they order and blindly place an order — but at Farzi, our staff knows it all and will help you out in picking the right dish for you,” says Sateesh. Well, Dev, who served us our food, knew everything about all that went onto our plates —he even spoke at length about the origin of each of these dishes!