If you throw a stone in Bandra, it will probably land on a café or deli, beckoning you with promises of free Wi-Fi, artisanal coffees and healthy salads. For a new café to drop in amidst all this, it needs to crank up its game by a few notches if it hopes to create a lasting impact on the minds of its customers.
By setting up their all-day sandwich shop Veronica’s inside the former St Jude’s Bakery, the good folks at Hunger Inc Hospitality responsible for The Bombay Canteen, O Pedro and Bombay Sweet Shop have already done half their job. It is hard to miss the brightly-painted art mural done by Portuguese street artist Akacorleone (done as part of the St+ART Mumbai Festival and which has since been refurbished) that covers its shuttered façade and as we alight from our auto and see a couple of youngsters posing in front of it for a picture, we make a mental note to do the same later. Things we do for the Gram!
Inside, you are greeted by the cheerful sight of black and white painted cats in nooks and corners — because there are so many in the area — wooden tables, graffiti-painted walls, a mint green and sunset orange colour palette and tiles with floral motifs. Just as you enter, there is a Bandra Bulletin board that lets you put up everything from offering your services for jobs or an art workshop you are conducting in the city. Past a little retail section where you can pick up goodies from the Bombay Sweet Shop and coffee beans from Veronica’s, there is comfortable seating for 28 people and an interactive sandwich and coffee bar.
Sameer Seth, founder and CEO at Hunger Inc. Hospitality, shares that during the pandemic, people were looking for comfort food and Sandwich Shack, which they had been running from O Pedro’s kitchen, had become pretty popular. “Once we re-opened for dine-in, we started having regulars and guests requesting us to serve the sandwiches for dine-in at O Pedro. That gave us the thought of having a casual space where we could serve these big, bold, crave-worthy and indulgent sandwiches,” he says, adding that this project is truly special because it is an ode to their beloved (late) friend and mentor Chef Floyd Cardoz who grew up in Bandra and for his love for breads.
So, what do we get at Veronica’s? Coffees, of course, and they have quite a few specialty coffees here. Your search for honest-to-God good kombucha ends at Veronica’s with freshly-brewed kombucha on tap. Zen was a refreshing concoction of green tea, Kashmiri lavender and lemongrass but it was Flower Power that took a second helping of. The green tea, rose and stinging nettle kombucha was mildly sweet and tart at the same time. As a friend commented, she is not going back to bottled kombuchas anymore.
The wine menu is more fun than intimidating, with one of the sections titled "Pour Gibberish on Me", for wine names that are hard to pronounce. Moving on to the grub, there’s a lot on offer, starting with croissants, eggs to order, salads, flaky puffs and for those with a sweet tooth — Gayu’s Chocolate Muffin, Dark Chocolate & Sea Salt Cookie and the most finger-licking and buttery Strawberry and Almond Mawa Cake. We suggest having the latter with some vanilla ice-cream for some extra dose of sinfulness.
The USP of the menu, says Hussain Shahzad, executive chef at Veronica’s, are definitely the “delicious, messy, indulgent and gluttonous sandwiches with global combinations”. “There aren’t many places in the city where you can go to have an honest and good sandwich, we wanted to create a space like that — a sandwich shop that serves breakfast, bakes, a selection of specialty brewed coffees, wine and kombucha,” he adds.
Mrs Mabel’s Pumpkin Bagel consisted of roasted pumpkin with arugula, cream cheese and a slather of spicy sambal that gave an extra kick to the chewy bagel. We thoroughly enjoyed the Taming the (Mu)Shroom Melt which had the tanginess of sundried tomatoes, confit garlic and mushrooms in truffle cream. Our pick from the ones we tasted was the Oh Shrimp! with a filling of shrimps in spicy gochujang sauce, dutch crunch and avocado offering a variety of textures and the juicy and crunchy Big Floyd with Nashville style hot fried chicken sandwiched between tender milk buns complimented by a tangy tamarind ranch.
Some notable mentions from the menu include the Burra Burra Bowl that gets an extra dose of crunchiness with a garnish of crispy quinoa and the Morning Momos with a filling of chicken sausage and aged cheese served with Sichuan hot oil. Veronica’s is definitely amping up the deli quotient with its contemporary offerings but it only takes a glance at the repurposed panels from the old façade to remind you of the glory of the neighbourhood it is located in.
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