Food for thought: Delhi's book cafes

The rich, warm glow of amber lights, the plush sofas, a cup of steaming cappuccino with a chocolate chip muffin on the side and a Deepak Chopra convincing you to be at peace … what more can you ask for? There’s something about cafes that draws the denizens of Delhi. Add to this a great selection of books and you’ve already created an everlasting bond.

The city boasts of a handful of book cafes, just the place where you can kick back and relax over a cuppa and successfully create a make-belief world sans traffic snarls, cranky bosses and home errands. Such cozy corners offer respite to an eclectic stream of visitors, from housewives to corporate head honchos, not to mention types in between who find book cafes a good excuse to pass time over a cuppa.

While a book cafe is primarily a bookstore with a café, where one can pick a book off the shelf and read over coffee (without having to buy the book later), sadi Dilli takes pride in doing things differently. In the hip teenybopper and rich housewife populated Khan Market or GK M-Block Market, any café that has a selection of books to browse and read, is called a book café.

Take for instance, Tazza, of the crisp-and-cheesy-pizza fame. The coffee shop of Kasbah restaurant in GK, Tazza has a modest but good selection of fiction and non-fiction with a few magazines thrown in. Glossy covers, cheese pizza and piping hot coffee draw a lot of the office crowd from the neighbourhood.

While book-café hopping, don’t miss Café Turtle at Full Circle bookstore. Climb up the flight of stairs, pick up a couple of titles from the bookshelves at the café and settle down in one of its cozy nooks. Done up in warm hues with a view of Delhi’s skyline thrown in, Cafe Turtle finds favour with the expat crowd and the city’s dilettante as well. And if the aroma of freshly baked cakes wafting through the café seems irresistible, satiate your urge pronto and dig into the Gooey Chocolate Cake. Life will suddenly seem worth living for!

Some Barista outlets too have turned into book cafes, with Corner Book Store doing the honours. The result: an amazingly warm ambience, with the regular Barista fare of coffee and short eats and a steady stream of loyal patrons floating in.

Not to be left behind either are some Café Coffee Day outlets, that have fashioned their new avatar with help from English Book Depot’s Book Café. Here you would find the traditional atmosphere of a book café—a soothing décor complemented with soft music; the food, though, definitely needs an overhaul.

So, where’re you reading today?