Gram Street Coffee

Rahul Prabhakar

3 months ago

5.0

The Café That Refuses to Let You Work Gram Street Coffee in DLF 1 is doing something quietly radical: it wants you to eat, drink, and leave. There is a particular kind of café fatigue that has settled over Gurugram's dining landscape. You know the type. Exposed brick, Edison bulbs, a chalkboard menu with six variations of pour-over, and every table occupied by someone with a MacBook and the thousand-yard stare of a person who has been nursing a single cold brew since eleven in the morning. The cafés are, in truth, coworking spaces with better Instagram backdrops. Which is precisely why Gram Street Coffee, Chef Vanshika Bhatia's newest venture tucked into DLF 1, feels like a breath of uncommon sense. Walk past its glass frontage — and you will notice it, because it is painted in a lilac that makes no apologies for itself — and you enter a room that is, by any conventional measure, tiny. Ten seats. Chrome accents cutting through the pastel. One corner given over to merchandise: tumblers, sunglasses, the kind of objects that signal a brand has thought carefully about its identity. The other corner is where the serious business happens: bakes arranged behind glass, a Carpigiani gelato machine that announces its own provenance, and a coffee counter that means what it says. Bhatia, who built her reputation on the quietly devoted following of Petite Pie Shop (2021) and later the plant-based seriousness of OMO (2022), has clearly been thinking about what she wants this place to be. She is not hiding it, either. The tables are intentionally smaller than standard, placed closer together than you might expect, and yet the room does not feel claustrophobic. It feels purposeful. The distinction matters. The area surrounding DLF 1 has three well-known gyms within walking distance, and Gram Street has positioned itself with an intelligence that speaks well of its owner. Post-workout matcha drinkers in their twenties, women stopping for a quick cappuccino between errands, families gravitating inevitably toward the gelato counter — within a week of opening, all of them were already here. Bhatia calls the concept an elevated QSR. I call it a café that actually understands what a café is for. On what to order The menu plays with references the way confident kitchens do — not to impress, but because the references actually make sense on the plate. Mr. Tikka in Paris is the item that will tell you everything you need to know about where Bhatia's head is. A French toast built around chicken tikka and pickled onion, finished with chives cream — it sounds like the sort of thing a lesser kitchen would fumble badly, pulling in too many directions at once. Here it is coherent: the spice of the tikka is tempered by the richness of the egg-soaked bread, and the pickled onion does the work that a good acid element always should, cutting through without dominating. K Drama — a spicy Korean gochujang mushroom puff — is the kind of item that benefits from the honesty of its name. The gochujang is not decorative. There is real heat here, and the mushroom filling carries an earthiness that keeps the whole thing from becoming a one-note exercise in borrowed Korean cool. The Croissant Gelato Latte is their signature, and it earns the designation. The logic is simple: take a croissant gelato — buttery, laminated in flavour — and build a latte around it. The result is the kind of coffee drink that you finish before you have had time to think too carefully about what you are drinking, which is generally the highest compliment. Of the non-coffee drinks, Desi Dua Lipa deserves particular attention, if only because the naming is better than it has any right to be. Diet Coke with lemon, desi masala, cumin, black salt, and mint: this is nimbu pani's more cosmopolitan cousin, and it is considerably more interesting than it sounds. Flirty in Florida — cold-pressed orange juice with yuzu lemon, mint, and tonic — is lighter, more straightforwardly refreshing, and will appeal to those who prefer their drinking uncomplicated. The gelatos are where Bhatia is most clearly herself. Lockdown Banana Bread captures something specific — the over-ripe banana, the warmth of baking spices, the slight density that distinguishes good banana bread from ordinary cake — and translates it faithfully. Signature Smoked Cacao is for those who want their chocolate to carry a little darkness: the smoke is subtle, never theatrical, and the cacao underneath it is serious rather than sweet. What it means The question one always asks of a new café is whether it has a reason to exist beyond its owner's enthusiasm. Gram Street does. It exists because the neighbourhood needed a place that understood the difference between a destination and a pitstop — and chose, deliberately, to be the latter. In a city where every café wants to be your third space, your office annex, your all-day refuge, here is one that simply wants to give you something good to eat and drink, and then send you on your way. That, in its own quiet way, is rather radical.

Himanshi

3 months ago

5.0

We visited Gram Street coffee in Gurgaon . This is a purple themed plush cafe n Gurgaon . It’s a Korean cafe . We had coffees , croissant, cake . Had a good time .

Ali Khan

2 months ago

4.0

Tried the Smoothie Protein Quantity is Decent Pricing is a little Bit High Taste was 8/10 Vibe is 10/10 Will try sandwich next time and write another Review So far is worth the Visit.

Preeti Prasad

4 months ago

3.0

Average taste, you will get more better coffee than the price Slow service And AC doesn’t work Place too small and when crowded You can just grab click a few pics of the ambiance that too if the place is not too crowded

Harshita

4 months ago

2.0

The cafe looks fancy but the experience didn’t match the pricing. Coffee seemed focused more on presentation than taste (more experimental than enjoyable), seating was uncomfortable and the food portions were underwhelming for the cost. Expected much better overall.

samya

2 months ago

1.0

unfortunately had a very disappointing experience. The Nutella latte tasted extremely unpleasant, and I informed your staff that it was making me feel nauseous. The dubai bling wrap was also below expectations, and shortly after my meal I ended up vomiting. I was also disappointed with the billing process. After replacing an item with a lower-priced one, my bill wasn’t adjusted. (And honestly it isn’t about the balance difference, rather ethics) Overall, the food quality, service, and billing experience were so below expectations

Jatin Kumar

3 months ago

1.0

I ordered Dubai latte, which said kunafa with chocolate in a coffee.. it was pathetic. i asked them if its the same thing which i ordered! he told me to mix it properly, with ur "PAPER STRAW" what service is that? what kinda coffee is that? eventually they mixed it, added some more cream to it, so it doesnt feel like i'm having coffee with just ice. Size of the coffee glass was small(as shown in picture) this overhyped shit costed me 400 bucks. People dont fall for this trend trap.

smriti narang

4 months ago

1.0

Very very bad taste of overly sweet milk coffee with zero coffee flavour … pathetic… zero management 3 staff people in which no ones assigned for specific job profile the staff people cannot decide either to bill or to cook or prepare food or serve … gelatos also have just sugar sweetness & nothing else

Bhumika Mitra

1 month ago

1.0

Extremely overpriced. I paid 600/- for such a small quantity of blueberry matcha. I asked them to remove the ice then it reduced even more lol. Sorry to write this review as i love petite pie. But you guys are just ripping us off of our money.

Ashmita Pundir

3 months ago

1.0

Ordered a coffee, matcha and croissant and would say that I was quite disappointed. The money paid was only for the ambience and hype but the place is not worth it.