Bangalore's Quiet Artist-Cafe Scene
Bangalore has a small but interesting set of cafes where artists, illustrators, photographers, and craft makers have created spaces that combine food with art:
Atta Galatta (Koramangala): — bookshop and cafe with art events, run by literary people
Kynkyny Art Cafe (Indiranagar): — gallery space + cafe
Lahe Lahe (Indiranagar): — performance arts space with an attached cafe
The Humming Tree (Indiranagar): — music venue and cafe with strong visual identity
Champaca Bookstore Cafe (Vasanth Nagar): — bookstore-cafe with curated cultural events
Cafe Felix (Indiranagar): — woman-led cafe with art events
Goobe's Book Republic (Church Street): — bookshop cafe with literary culture
These places put art and aesthetics first — the food is good, but the experience is the point.
A Different Kind of "Artisanal"
There is another tradition of artisan craft in cafes that is much older and much quieter: the artisan craft of traditional cooking itself. The fermentation knowledge of an idli batter. The grinding judgement of a chutney. The seasonal palya rotation. The heat control on a dosa griddle.
These are also crafts. They take years to learn. They are passed down. They are deeply personal.
**Shastrys Cafe in Kodigehalli** belongs to this second tradition. It is not an "artist cafe" in the gallery-and-events sense. It is an artisan cafe in the older, quieter sense — where the kitchen is the workshop and the food is the craft.
What Makes a Kitchen an "Artisan Workshop"
The same things that make any artisan workshop:
Knowledge passed down through generations: (the family recipes)
Tools that are old and well-loved: (the wet grinder, the iron griddle, the brass coffee filter)
Materials sourced with care: (daily market vegetables, weekly-ground masalas, pure ghee)
Variation by hand and feel: (no machine consistency — every batch slightly different)
Time as an ingredient: (overnight fermentation, slow rasam tempering, thrice-roasted coffee decoction)
When you eat at Shastrys, you are eating the output of an artisan kitchen workshop — exactly in the same way you would buy from a craft pottery studio or visit a handloom weaver.
A Shastrys Visit as an "Art Experience"
If you frame the visit this way, the experience is different:
• Watch the dosa being made on the iron griddle
• Smell the chutney as it is ground that morning
• Taste the natural sourness of the overnight-fermented batter
• Hear the wet grinder running in the kitchen
• Notice that today's palya is different from last week's
It is not a gallery. It is a working artisan kitchen — which is its own form of art.
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)
