By Meera Vohra
In an age when every moment is being designed as Instagram-worthy, Sparrow café in the Assi area of Varanasi is a refreshing change. A traditional home with a verandah and wide wooden windows has been running as a café for a decade now. The cosy setup reminds one of our grandparents' home rather than a regular café, with the guests often spending hours here with some delicious food, infused with local ingredients, for company. The cafe derives its name from the sparrows that flock in the morning, as they do in most homes.
The all-woman setup, perhaps the first in the city, came into existence around 2016. Sakshi Srivastava, who helms the café, says, “Initially, people were apprehensive of a woman managing along with a team of ladies. This feeling ran in the family as well, but I was sure that this was my calling. From the very beginning, I wanted to give a home like feeling to the guests coming to our place. The reason no change has been made to this nearly 80-year-old property.”
The verandah, which is a delight during the winters, has remained intact so are the other parts of the house- turned- café. A wall almirah stacked with crockery, books on the shelf and some paintings on the wall form the décor of the Sparrow café in Varanasi.
The guests are put at ease with the home-like gestures of the staff. “Once, a foreign traveller visiting us was quite enchanted by a colourful mug stacked in our crockery section. We not only served her in that mug but also gifted it to her as she could not find a similar one in the market,” shares Sakshi.
It is also the food that brings the customers to the café. Delicacies using seasonal ingredients make the cafe's menu special. Locally sourced vegetables are used in the dishes, so the offerings change with the seasons. For instance, cucumber-based drinks are served in the summer. A dish titled Buddha bowl, made with parval (pointed gourd), is available only in the summer, as pointed gourd is a summer vegetable. Similarly, broccoli-based delicacies are part of the menu only in winter.
“From the very onset, we were very particular about using fresh and clean ingredients in our food, which has been well received by our guests. Over the years, a lot of celebrities have visited our café. The main leads of the Mirzapur web series, like Pankaj Tripathi and Shweta Tripathi, have dined here. Recently, music composer Sneha Khanwalkar of Gangs of Wasseypur fame came for her meals at our cafe,” says Sakshi.
Apart from the food, the café also hosts cooking classes aiming to preserve the traditional cuisine of the region. “There are a lot of recipes of our grandmother’s that have been pushed to the margin, so we try to revive them through these cooking sessions, which most of our guests are more than ready to learn,” says Sakshi.
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