The Café Where Global Delicacies Join Hands With Sinful Pastries

A name that has become quite popular among the Chennai crowd, Pantry D’Or Cordon Bleu, Alwarpet is where we decided to check out, all prepared to try out their famed dishes brought in from cuisines around the world. The interiors, that slightly lean towards French, is pretty and the wall art especially makes you want to keep clicking selfies all day. We make ourselves comfortable on the plush sofas while the courteous staff take us through the menu and help us choose.

Soupalicious

We start with the Cream of Broccoli, a lovely creamy soup served with complementary multigrain bread. The soup is subtly spiced so that the broccoli remains the king in terms of taste and it tastes rich but feels light on the stomach. Now, that’s the kind of soup we can’t get enough of!

Maybe we were in one of those moods where we wanted to try out more broccoli because our first appetizer was the Broccoli Cheddar Fritters, which are basically panko-fried broccoli and cheddar cheese patties served with a delightful in-house garlic aioli. The fritters feel light as a feather and taste yummy, especially with that aioli.

Appetizers, ahoy!

Our next appetizer was the Jerked Chicken, straight from the cuisine of Jamaica. Chicken breasts cooked with Jamaican spices with a light honey glaze is an absolute must-try. The chicken is tender and if you’re the sweet’n’spicy type, you’ll love this one. There’s a slight aftertaste of cashews and cloves that we couldn’t seem to place but the dish gets a thumbs up from us.

Pizza and it’s Turkish cousin

Our pizza was the Primavera, a veg pizza with garden-fresh vegetables including tomatoes, onions, and olives topped with loads of cheesy. Seriously, there’s so much cheese the veggies are hardly visible. Well, what’s a good pizza without a cheese-overload, eh? The stringy cheese that oozes out as we pull out a slice is the stuff of TV ads, for sure.

If you didn’t know what a pide was, well, we were just like you but then Pantry D’Or went up and served a gorgeous one, thus making sure we’d never forget. Pides are Turkish-style flatbread that resembles our pizza but tastes better. Much better! The flatbread is crispy and has a savory hint to it and along with the topping that has chicken, veggies and cheddar cheese, the dish was fabulous. We never thought anything could replace pizza but a pide just might convert you. The pide is served with two types of aioli – the usual kind and a pink smoked aioli that was the perfect accompaniment to the flatbread.

A bowl of pie

Next up, we had the Roasted Chicken Potato Pie, a deconstructed version that has creamy roasted chicken that’s covered with a layer of mashed potatoes topped with a layer of cheese that is torched to create those mouth-watering cheese bubbles that are like a siren, calling us to dig in. The dish has got white sauce and fresh cream and every bite got us thinking, “Could it BE any creamier?”

Saviours of the sweet-tooth

Our desserts arrive, the part of our meal we were most excited about (well, duh!). The Baked Alaska was a sight for sore eyes. Rich vanilla and strawberry ice cream hide below a layer of sponge cake that in turn hides beneath an encasing of crisp meringue and served with mixed berry compote. The warm meringue and the ice cream contrast beautifully and the dessert is as divine as it can get. There’s meringue, there’s cake, there’s ice cream and there’s compote. Do we need say more?

The pretty bakery section had some of the prettiest-looking desserts and it was after much thought that we went with the Piedmont, a delicate hazelnut mousse that stole our hearts.

Our final dessert was the Kesar Mango Kulfi Mixed Berry Sandwich from their Mango Special Menu, a unique dessert, unlike anything we’ve tried. Once you learn how it’s made, you can’t help but appreciate the ingenuity behind it. Mangoes are deseeded and stuffed with kulfi ice cream, frozen, sliced and served with layers of cake, whipped cream, and mixed berry compote. Yummy!

Pantry D’Or Cordon Bleu brings us delicious slices of different cuisines of the world and pairs them up with oven-fresh desserts and pastries, and we loved every minute of our meal.