Greenr Cafe

Rahul Prabhakar

2 weeks ago

5.0

The Green Revolution on Your Plate: Why Greenr Café is the Most Quietly Radical Restaurant in Gurugram There is a particular kind of scepticism that greets plant-based restaurants in India. We are, after all, a civilization that has spent millennia perfecting vegetarian cooking — the dal makhani, the dum aloo, the undhiyu — and yet somehow, when a café announces itself as "plant-based" and "conscious," we instinctively brace for punishment. We expect food that is earnest but joyless. Virtuous but flavourless. The culinary equivalent of a lecture on sustainability delivered by someone who has never actually enjoyed a meal. Greenr Café, I am delighted to report, is none of those things. I came to the 32nd Avenue outpost in Gurugram on one of those deceptively warm afternoons that Gurugram specialises in — the kind where the air conditioning inside feels like a reward rather than an amenity. The space itself has the thoughtful, unhurried energy of a place that knows what it is and does not feel the need to shout about it. No aggressive wall art demanding you "Eat Clean." No chalkboard manifestos. Just a certain ease, a considered calm that immediately signals: the people who built this have thought hard about what they are doing. And indeed they have. Nitin Dixit and Mohit Yadav launched Greenr in 2015 out of Shahpur Jat — that labyrinthine village-turned-design-district in South Delhi that has always attracted the city's more thoughtful entrepreneurs. When Vaibhav Nagori joined as the third founding partner in late 2017, the cafe began a journey that would eventually make it the first national plant-based chain in India, with locations spread across Delhi NCR and Mumbai. That is not a small achievement. Building a chain around a food philosophy that India's dining mainstream had barely begun to understand takes either extraordinary conviction or extraordinary naivety. In Greenr's case, I suspect it was the former. But enough context. Let us talk about the food, because that, ultimately, is what separates the missionaries from the merely well-meaning. I began with the Acai Berry Bowl, and I want to dwell on this for a moment, because it is the kind of dish that is very easy to get badly wrong. The acai bowl has, in recent years, become something of a cliché on the global wellness circuit — all Instagram-ready purple swoops and artfully fanned fruit that looks magnificent and tastes of precisely nothing. Greenr's version, with its combination of acai, raspberries, blackcurrants, apple and pineapple, manages something rather more difficult: it tastes of what it actually is. The acai has that characteristic earthiness — almost chocolatey, almost savoury — that gets bulldozed by sugar in lesser versions. The berries bring a tartness that keeps the whole thing honest. It is a West Coast classic, as they describe it, executed with the confidence of people who actually understand why it became a classic in the first place. The Shanghai Sichuan Soba was the dish that genuinely surprised me. Noodle bowls in Indian restaurants — plant-based or otherwise — tend to be timid affairs, stripped of the fire and complexity that make the original worth emulating. This one is not timid. The Sichuan influence is real: there is heat here, and it has architecture. The tofu dumplings — and I say this as someone who has eaten his share of tofu prepared without conviction — are actually worth eating. The red cabbage, pak choi, mushrooms and baby corn are not afterthoughts; they are participants. It is a bowl that rewards attention, and in a dining landscape where noodles are often just a vehicle for sauce, that is worth noting. The Asparagus Tempura arrived looking like a roll that had dressed up for a special occasion — black rice sushi with asparagus tempura, sesame, tanuki, cucumber and chipotle plant mayo. The tempura batter was, crucially, light. This sounds like a minor point but it is not. Heavy tempura batter on asparagus is an act of burial. Done well, as it was here, the crunch is a conversation rather than a confrontation, and the chipotle plant mayo brought a smokiness that tied everything together with some elegance. A word about the coffees, because Greenr takes them seriously and you should too. The Vietnamese Coffee is exactly what you want it to be — dark, patient, faintly sweetened, with that distinctive condensed-milk richness that makes Vietnamese coffee one of the great small pleasures of the global café circuit. The Cortado — that underappreciated middle child of espresso drinks, too small for the latte crowd and too milky for the purists — was pulled well. The ratio was right. The milk was textured, not steamed into oblivion. These are small mercies that good coffee drinkers notice immediately. What Greenr is doing — and I think it is worth saying this plainly — is more interesting than it might first appear. The idea of "conscious consumption" is bandied about with such frequency these days that it risks becoming meaningless. But the best version of that idea is not about denial or restriction. It is about choosing, as Greenr's founders put it, food that is responsible, ethical, quality-oriented — and crucially, genuinely worth eating. The aspiration to revolutionise India's dine-out culture is a large one. But on the evidence of 32nd Avenue, Gurugram, Greenr has at least understood the first principle: that any revolution worth attending must begin with a meal worth eating. This one certainly is.

Sarthak

3 months ago

5.0

Food was great as were the drinks. The variety and creativity is lovely. Must visit for all!

Saurabh Sharma

11 months ago

5.0

Very nice vegan options. Loved what we ordered especially the smoothie bowls!

Phalguni

10 months ago

4.0

We recently visited Greenr Café and had such a wholesome experience. We tried their kombucha, house-made sodas, shroom pizza, Saigon paper rolls, gnocchi pasta, and the tofu amaranth burger—and honestly, everything was spot on. While the whole spread was impressive, the gnocchi pasta and tofu amaranth burger were definite standouts for me—flavourful, satisfying, and beautifully plated. The coffee deserves a special mention too—bold, smooth, and just what we needed to wrap up the meal. If you’re into mindful eating with great taste, this place is definitely worth a visit!

+1

Karun sharma

1 year ago

2.0

Service is poor. Ordered Pesto spaghetti which had zero salt n taste. Don't order Mint drink & akso Ginger ale, it's the worst I had. Garden pizza was good.

Akshay raina

11 months ago

2.0

Ordered the avacado truffle sushi but was not upto the mark, barely any truffle oil taste, was really bland, the plating can be really better.

Malikka

1 month ago

2.0

The ginger ale and asparagus sushi I ordered, were genuinely bad. Good ambiance and staff.

angira tewari

1 year ago

1.0

Visited the place multiple times and the place has really nice food. The service was great but a big unexpected event was a staff member who started arguing with us in a an extremely attacking tone because we asked them to remove the service charge and tip them separately since SC is not mandatory as per the Gov. laws. He then also created a ruckus when we intended to pay through Zomato. The argument kept going to and fro for a couple of minutes till some other guests had to intervene. Was a first timer and shocking at such a reputable eatery. Not sure if would like to ever visit them again.

Kanika Maliwal

1 year ago

1.0

Greenr used to be one of my absolute go-to places, I’ve been here countless times and always loved it. So despite a friend warning me that the food quality had dropped, I decided to visit again today. Honestly, I’m really disappointed. The quality and taste of the food have gone down significantly, and with the prices they’re charging, it just doesn’t feel worth it anymore. It’s genuinely sad to see a place that was once known for its amazing food and consistency lose its charm like this. Feels like they just don’t care the way they used to.

Devashish

1 year ago

1.0

i have been to Greenr several times but lately the food has been really poor. the footfall has reduced significantly and so has the portion size. highly disappointed - zero stars.