1. Take us through your dessert cafes and full-service restaurants.
Ruchyeta and Chef Amit Sharma launched Love & Cheesecake in November 2012. It marked a beautiful union of their secret ingredients – passion, obsession, flavour and magic. Through patience, belief and customer gratification, their 200 sq. ft. experimental kitchen has today grown to be one of Mumbai’s top premium Food & Beverage destinations with 18 stores in two unique formats.
Love and Cheesecake: The brand name is inspired from the transcendental timelessness of Love. Love and Cheesecake has 9 dessert-only cafes across Mumbai and Delhi that pride itself as being a curator of edible dessert art across 56+ different natural flavours of cheesecakes, cakes, baked goods and confectionary. We are the only dessert café in Mumbai that uses pure Italian Dessert Cheese over more harmful albeit cheaper whipped cream alternatives. We are also one of the most interactive brands that actively engage with its patrons. We are the only dessert brand in Mumbai and Delhi that provides a citywide delivery within 2 hours, because love knows no pin codes!
Poetry: In 2016, Love & Cheesecake morphed into ‘Poetry’, a full-service restaurant, with our first outlet in Mumbai’s bustling suburb of Bandra. Poetry has now increased its footprints to 9 destinations across Mumbai with 2 more under fit outs in New Delhi. At Poetry, one can experience the most exquisite breakfast menu, specialty brewed coffee, cold pressed juices, soups, salads, sandwiches, pancakes, waffles, continental main course dishes, desserts and more – a dreamy culmination of comfort food and delicious indulgences whilst ensuring food is what it should be – fresh, natural and delicious! But there’s more: Love is after-all, about the small things: airy, well-lit interiors with art-inspirations; humility and attentiveness in service; soft sounds Aretha Franklin, Adele and Etta James; free Wi-fi for connectivity; a book of poems that carries the cheque and scores of friendly faces. Don’t take our word for it. Embrace the mellow love yourself!
2. How did Ruchyeta Bhatia and Chef Amit Sharma start off this journey?
Ruchyeta dabbled into the advertising industry after completing her major in Economics from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. On one of her outings with her friends, the idea of starting a premium dessert café popped up in her head. Later when she was narrowing down her options in the F&B industry, she decided to undergo a culinary course to get familiar with this sector. She got accepted in the Culinary Institute of America but it needed her to spend six months in a commercial kitchen before starting the course. This brought her to Mumbai’s Marriott Hotels for an internship where she got introduced to pastry chef Amit Sharma. Chef Amit Sharma had over 10 years of experience in the hospitality industry, working with top names such as the Taj Group and the Marriott. Eventually he joined Ruchyeta in her entrepreneurial journey bringing in the necessary expertise and the drive to create something new and big. Their passion for desserts led to the inception of Love & Cheesecake.
3. How has your personal experience been in the hospitality background?
Ruchyeta: My first job was at an international market research firm where I helped analyse survey results. I subsequently moved into an advertising consulting role with Ogilvy. It didn’t last very long as I left within five months to start my own business. I had an aptitude for business but no previous experience. At the age of 22, my first venture was a business related to corporate training and it made use of adventure sports as part of the model. It was successful for a while but I soon realised that the idea was not scalable and ended up selling that business in January 2012. In the same year, I realised that I wanted to get into the food industry. After narrowing down my options to a premium dessert café, I decided to sharpen my skills and get familiar with the F&B industry by doing a course in the same from Culinary Institute of America. However, it required me to spend about six months in a commercial kitchen and for the same I joined Mumbai’s Marriot Hotel as an intern. I spent six months garnering necessary skills and learning fine nuances of desserts and also learned that the dessert category was tough to crack. It was evidently challenging as a business prospect, but it only whetted my entrepreneurial appetite and the establishment of Love & Cheesecake.
Chef Amit Sharma: I believe I have food in my blood. My father ran a successful catering business in Punjab, so it was only natural for me to enter this industry. After graduating from culinary school, I worked at Taj, Westin and Marriott Group for several years before co-founding Love and Cheesecake with Ruchyeta. My experience also spans across various Starwood hotels before I moved for a while to Australia where I was put in a department to make only cheesecakes for the 1st one year. That is when my story with cheesecakes began.
4. ‘Cheesecakes’ as a concept has lately been picked up in India. What is your take on that?
Definitely, Cheesecake as a dessert item has moved from European tables to Indian dining tables within no time! It is a mouth-watering appetizer which can be tried in different variations. We believe that in recent years India has changed tremendously for the food and restaurants industry. With a growing middle class and improving quality of life in urban areas, more people have been willing to spend on quality food and lifestyle products. Also, we noticed in India specifically that cheesecakes grew popular among younger generations because they were seen as cool and stylish and over a period of time became a favourite dessert option for everyone.
5. What according to you is the quality of best cheesecakes?
Good taste and the use of high-quality ingredients that melts in your mouth is a quality associated with the best cheesecakes. All our cheesecakes are made from premium ingredients like light, Italian dessert cheese or the deeply textured cream cheese and we don’t use whipped cream etc. because we believe it’s bad for your health whereas cheese is purely a dairy product. Finally, it comes down to our business choices and what we really believe in. For example, we are investing a lot in ensuring our supply chain works well. Since our cheesecakes are extremely delicate, we have our own refrigerated delivery trucks that deliver desserts to our store – because we didn’t want our desserts to suffer from temperature variations – that’d spoil the experience. We also have 40 of our own delivery riders to deliver individual cakes from our refrigerated hubs across the city. So, while it’s costly to own and operate an in-house logistics team, we think that that’s essential. Similarly, most of our chefs have a five-star experience in their CVs. Even then, they undergo a rigorous training program with us. Overall, I think it really comes down to what one stands for. We hope that in the long run our customers will see through our commitment and focus on quality control and keep coming back to us.
6. What are your expansion plans for the brand?
From a team of only 2 when we started in 2012, we are now 350+ employees in our organization! We have our office and large central kitchen in Powai where all the operations, production for Love and Cheesecake take place. Currently, we have 18 outlets so far across Mumbai & Delhi with 5 more launching between July-August, 3 in Delhi, and 2 in Mumbai. We plan to open at 7 more locations in Delhi in this financial year and begin our foray into Pune. Our aim is to launch Love and Cheesecake across India, in cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad over the next 2-3 years. We want to create the largest and most-respected F&B organization in India. It’s a bold vision and we know it will take time but we want to get as close to it as possible. We hope to augment our technology stack and make lives easier for our customers and our employees. Maybe we will experiment with some adjacent products/markets next year. Ultimately, we want to make sure what we do is sustainable and honest to our core values. Both of us waltz into work every day and we just want to keep doing more of the same.
7. What are the marketing strategies that have helped your brand grow?
We are firm believers that word of mouth is the best form of marketing. There’s no way any ad or other marketing channel can beat your best friend coming and recommending Love and Cheesecake’s Red Velvet Cheesecake or our Portobello Panino Sandwich. We keep doing brand building initiatives from time to time but our belief is that word of mouth is what really works. Of course, it’s slow and takes time but that’s the best way to build a sustainable food services business. We’ve been lucky that our customers talk well about us and have supported us all these years.
8. Since now your brand has grown to one of Mumbai’s top premium dessert brand and Restaurant. How do you intent to maintain it?
We’re extremely particular about our quality control standards. It is our topmost priority to retain our customers. At the same time, our centralised structure makes sure that the food and desserts across all our chains remains the same to maintain our premium taste and prim texture. Additionally, we believe in innovation and change. We’re constantly experimenting and trying new things through special delights, limited edition and seasonal items, so that we can gauge the likes and dislikes of our consumers and offer them divine delectable to relish.
9. Have you been following any baking culinary trends lately?
At the moment we’re focusing on providing people with heavenly desserts they must have missed having, owing to the lockdown in the past two years. We’re currently making delicious desserts using seasonal fruits like cherries and mangoes for our customers to devour the goodness of the summer season on a plate.
10. Do you change the menu seasonally?
Our menu is updated every three to four months and we love to delight our customers with innovative and unique recipes.
11. Future plans for the brand with respect to cheesecakes and desserts? Are there going to be any menu additions at Love and Cheesecakes?
We believe in updating our menu based on our customer preferences. Based on their reviews and suggestions, we discontinue the desserts or food items that aren’t working and additionally introduce new items for them to try. We also change it based on the location of our chain. For example, we’re planning to introduce desserts containing alcohol in the city of Pune, as it’s populated with a young crowd who’re looking for experimental items. Our plans are in sync with the wants of our consumers.
12. How far do you see the business growing? How far has it taken you personally as a Chef?
The best part about the food industry is that it doesn’t have a limit. It’s constantly evolving and our business believes in updating itself to match the current demand of the market. In fact, we can see our brand growing two folds in the future. Personally, as a chef, I am trying new cuisines and learning every day. My love for food and baking has already brought me a lot of success and I love being a chef.
