Art in a Café

Imagine my surprise, walking into a cafe and greeted by none, no servers, no clutter of tables, no clink-clank of cutlery, just a vast space with an array of staring fiberglass dolls of varying colors, and paintings on the wall.

If you are like me, who can stare at a painting or an installation for hours, drink some black coffee and gobble up some rich and delicious cakes, Kashi Art Café is the place for you.

An old Dutch house converted without disturbing any elements of the house, which is so important for me when I visit converted old buildings. Each house each building I believe has a soul and any renovation should not disturb these basic elements.

After you finish staring at the art, you can enter other rooms, where you are welcomed by chairs and tables scattered filling up discreet corners giving the feeling of an art gallery, never a cafe.

Then you see a small kitchen, sitting areas, a coffee corner with Italian Espresso mocha pots, a cake display stand, tables that look like chocolate fondue, open space into the sky, some plants hanging out, an old wall with moisture paint, and people lazing around. Reminded me of old European town squares tucked into a building at Burger Street, Fort Kochi.

For a moment, if you think they are craftily diluting their menu for art, you are wrong. The menu would seem unassuming and light with items like sprout salad and potato soup.

So you think until you order one of those devilish home made cakes. Oo Ma! The best chocolate cake I ever tasted in Kerala. The moment it tickles your taste buds, you are sure they have used the freshest ingredients without cutting any corners. While waiting for my espresso order, I chatted up with Anoop Skaria, the co-owner who must be loving his job tremendously.

He and his wife Dorrie Younger set up this cafe twelve years back in 1997 for their love of promoting art, and also because nothing like that existed in Cochin before. They are both art lovers and collectors and came up with this idea, Anoop says to remind him of Vienna(Austria) which seems to be his favorite place. It would have been really risky to start something like this in Cochin but to everybody's delight they were proved right. They now boast two Art galleries and Kashi Art Café is the most happening place in Fort Kochi.

Kashi Art Café welcomes budding artists and even run resident programs with a stipend for the artists. Skaria tells me with pride, many now famous artists like Upendranath and GopiKrishna started out small from their little cafe.

I ordered a chocolate cake (Rupees 55) and espresso (Rupees 45). They were perfect to the beans. All this along with Barbara Ash's 'Sugar and Spice'.

No wonder you feel connected to this place even at your first visit, with food and art, how could anything go wrong?

(I cannot express enough my gratitude to Thulasi Kakkat, for the extravagant beautiful pictures that accompany this post and for introducing me to Fort Kochi)

Series Reading.
1. A Princess Story
2. Upstairs Italian Cuisine