La Folie Patisserie - Sweet Whimsy

Chef Sanjana Patel, the well-known  patisserie owner received great success with her first outlet in Kala Ghoda, which led her to open her second dessert boutique La Folie Patisserie at Palladium Mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai. La Folie, as Sanjana says, "Is a way of expressing beyond simple emotions”. That is exactly the intent of the dynamic duo Parthesh and Chef Sanjana, who have painstakingly given La Folie the industrial ambience to a pastry kitchen. Serving the best texture layered desert, the patisserie is one of a kind in the city. Sanjana has always dreamt of opening her own patisserie and limit the needs of pastry fanatics to travel across the world. 

According to the founders, great efforts have been channelized into creating a replica of an authentic French patisserie. The overall design of the store has been approached on two fronts - micro and macro. Visually, the story makes a big impact as one approaches the facade, but once inside, there is a micro level of detailing from the structure to the display, the visual merchandising and branding making the space more interesting.

Prior to La Folie being set up, a seven month workshop was conducted, to train the workers. Although budget concerns came up, the owners explained that they never compensated on the quality of their products.

The inception of any business is bound to be haunted by skepticism. Initially, La Folie maintained a "safe menu” with the usual caramel pastries or cheesecake. After the praises started snowballing, Chef Sanjana dished out experimental products which were well received by the customers.
 
What's interesting is how Chef Sanjana has never stepped back from experimenting something new and trying something out of the box. Every new product on their menu is like a manifestation of her mind or as Parthesh puts it, "it's like Sanjana on a plate”

They have "moved away from serving the traditional'cakes' to serving the customers an experience of a kind”. As an obvious consequence customers began to welcome the experimentation. La Folie gradually moved towards maintaining a pairing menu alongside its original menu where the customers were given the liberty to try out a vast variety of choices clubbed into one single delicacy.

Speaking of one of the instances, Parthesh went on to narrate an incident when a loyal customer was planning a surprise party for her husband's 30th birthday and she pushed the patisserie owners to come up with something exceptional. Sanjana served the desert on an 8ft long and 4ft wide table with no plates. The desert was placed in front of the invitees and was asked to savor it from the table itself.

The in-store ambience plays a key role in keeping the customers intact. The triangular shaped space is spread over 235 sq ft, where an interesting combination of an industrial experience comes in with gear knobs on the walls. The challenging task of creating the interiors was easily done by Rooshad Shroff along with the owners.

One of the interesting items that features on their menu is the'Hackabox' which basically is a combination of independently chosen varied products that the customer could carry home.  It could be a simple combination of macrons, cookies or chocolates and also can be a diverse amalgamation of the all these products.

Going forward, Parthesh is planning a new patisserie in Bandra. Although he wanted to keep the name of the new store under wraps, he did describe it as an "ethereal shop”. The Bandra branch will be an all-day store, which will have an open kitchen with a motive to "capture the five senses of a human being”. The menu will be changing recurrently. The night and day menu are also going to be different which is a perfect avenue for those with the right amount of patience and are all set for some gastronomic delights.

A couple of years from now, Parthesh and Sanjana are also aiming at a "city parade” covering major parts of Mumbai, as they believe it is only fair allow all pastry fanatics enjoy such delicacies!