The "Artisan" Word in Bangalore Food
In Bangalore food media, "artisan" has come to mean third-wave coffee shops, sourdough bakeries, micro-roasters, craft chocolatiers, and small-batch fermenteries. These are real artisan crafts — and Bangalore has a wonderful scene of them.
But "artisan" did not start with these. The original artisan food kitchens in Bangalore were the family-run South Indian cafes that have served traditional food made entirely by hand for decades. Brahmins Coffee Bar. Veena Stores. Hegde. MTR. CTR. Vidyarthi Bhavan. Shastrys Cafe.
These places do everything an "artisan" cafe does — and have done it for much longer.
What Makes a Kitchen "Artisan"
Some markers, in no particular order:
1. **No commercial commissary or pre-mix**
2. **Recipes from a person, not a brand book**
3. **Tools that are old and irreplaceable** (specific wet grinders, specific griddles, specific brass filters)
4. **Daily variation by hand and feel**
5. **Time as a key ingredient** (overnight fermentation, slow tempering, multi-pass roasting)
6. **Limited menu** (you can only artisan-make so many things)
7. **Generational knowledge transfer** (not a culinary school certificate)
A Brahmin cafe like Shastrys hits every one of these markers. So does a third-wave coffee bar. They are both "artisan" — they just look different.
What This Looks Like at Shastrys Cafe
The Wet Grinder
The idli/dosa batter is ground in a stone wet grinder — not a high-speed mixer that overheats the batter and kills the fermentation potential. The grinder runs for 30-40 minutes per batch.
The Overnight Fermentation
The batter is fermented overnight in the kitchen at room temperature. The fermentation is judged by the rise of the batter, the smell, and the consistency — not by a clock.
The Daily Chutney Grind
Coconut chutney is ground each morning before the cafe opens. A second batch is ground around 11 AM for lunch. Never stored beyond 8 hours.
The Weekly Masala Roast
Sambar masala, rasam powder, chutney pudi — all ground in our kitchen in small weekly batches. Each ingredient dry-roasted separately on low flame.
The Daily Palya Rotation
What's on the lunch plate today depends on what looked good at the Sahakaranagar morning market. Beans, cabbage, beetroot, pumpkin, ridge gourd, drumstick — they rotate.
The Brass Coffee Filter
Filter coffee is brewed in a traditional brass coffee filter. The decoction drips slowly through finely-ground Coorg coffee with chicory. Mixed with hot frothed milk in steel tumbler-and-davara.
Why This Matters
The same things that make a third-wave coffee taste different from chain-cafe coffee are what make a Brahmin cafe sambar taste different from a powder-mix sambar. The artisan attention is real. The result is real. The price difference between the two is small.
If you appreciate the craft of a third-wave espresso, you will appreciate the craft of a Shastrys Cafe filter coffee — and the wet-ground idli batter, and the morning-ground chutney, and the weekly-roasted sambar masala.
How to Visit
Dine-in:: No.880, NTI Layout, 2nd Phase, Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Kodigehalli, Bangalore – 560097
Hours:: 8:30 AM – 2:30 PM & 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM (Sundays closed)
Zomato:: [https://www.zomato.com/bangalore/shastrys-cafe-sahakara-nagar-bangalore/order](https://www.zomato.com/bangalore/shastrys-cafe-sahakara-nagar-bangalore/order)
Ownly (by Rapido):: [https://ownly.in](https://ownly.in)
