Le Plaisir is a tiny (cosy) cafe/bistro/patisserie on Pune's Bhandarkar Road. A labour of love of its young and enthusiastic chef/owner Siddharth Mahadik, it combines simplicity and charm in its ambience - a simple wooden bench running along one wall, 4 small tables, a painting of a true-blue Parisien bistro up on one of the plain white walls - and chillers filled with fresh-baked bread, cakes and macarons in a rainbow of colours. A blackboard lists the short-and-sweet menu - a few choices of beverages (coffees, hot chocolate and iced tea), 4 types of sandwiches (these change every few days) and a soup. Siddharth is a trained chef from Le Cordon Bleu at Sydney, and brings with him the Australian passion for freshness, preferring a short menu that is chock-full of fresh seasonal produce as against an elaborate menu that requires stock-keeping and inventory.
Siddharth's passion for cookery and food is seen in the effort he takes to personally serve and explain each dish to the customer, and his eagerness to take feedback. My soup (pictured above) had a drizzle of some oil on the top and my inquiring if it was truffle oil led to a long conversation about truffle oil, its scent, its usage, and the impact of using it on the price of the food. Talking of the soup, it was thicker than I'd expected - almost like a puree - but warm, creamy, comforting, with tiny explosions of flavour every time I bit into one of the fresh oregano leaves. Served with crispy bread sticks livened with a surprise chilli hit, the soup was generous enough to sate my post-morning-walk hunger pangs.
The red velvet cupcake I sampled next was a bit of a let down due to the slightly dry crust around the otherwise fluffy cake. Now red velvet is supposed to be decadently soft and moist and melt-in-the-mouth, so this one was a bit of a miss. But Siddharth said that it was probably due to the air-cooled chiller, and said that it affected the texture of his macarons as well. He went so far as to urged me to try his dark chocolate macaron (on the house!) just so that I could compare its perfect texture with the slightly-warped texture of my salted caramel macaron. (Disclosure - I did not allow him to give it free, and paid for it)
And I think this is the key to a memorable dining experience - while great food is enough to make a restaurant a firm favourite, great interaction with the chef/staff or truly attentive service takes a restaurant from good to great. Siddharth's willingness to share his knowledge, talk to his patrons, and his genuine passion for food (he gave me a spoonful of his basil-cashewnut pesto as I was paying the bill, just so I could taste the freshness of the basil he sources!) make Le Plaisir a definite must-visit for folks who love 'Western' food.
Le Plaisir
Shop 4B, Next to Oma Spa
Bhandarkar Road,
Pune
020 30570433
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