The newly opened Le Mill café sits on one end of the cavernous, much-hyped store, hedged in by tiled white walls, overblown naked bulbs, a fragrant flower shop and thick-skinned, green-tinged glass jars in sizes large and small. The tables are carefully casual, as is the menu – here you’ll find mismatched white chairs and tenderloin, drinking water poured into cutting chai glasses, mango salad served on sturdy ceramic plates.

Take My Breath Away

We kicked off our late lunch with some eye candy from the jewelry display, strewn with yummy string-and-metal En Inde necklaces, as well as a lamb and pomegranate salad. Minty, sweet, refreshingly wet, this was a good foil for white onion and chive oil soup - creamy, hearty and absolutely not suited for a summer afternoon. Also, they should serve that dish with breath mints.

Mains Attraction

Next in line was our meal’s high point, cheesy spinach gnocchi sitting pretty in a pool of oil and topped with crisps, light as air and still decadent, the culinary equivalent of Birdy’s Skinny Love cover. If there’s one thing you get when you visit Le Mill, it should be this (tin camouflage bookshelf boxes featuring the French translation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland are a close second). Bread yearners should also check out the juicy chicken pesto sub, but only if they like zucchini.

Dear Dairy

As compared to the rest of the menu, the dessert selection here falls short – perhaps because the healthy, organic philosophy the café employs is hardest to implement in sweets. Case in point was a slice of chocolate yogurt cake, which tasted fine (it pains us, dear reader, to use such a banal adjective for something as devastatingly compelling as chocolate cake) when paired with vanilla ice cream, but on its own was way too dry. A papaya jam tart might have been a better option. Oh well, next time. 

“Not if you don’t want to eat only yogurt (sans the cake) at all your meals for the next two months”, one of the diners at our table retorted. This is true. Like most of the wares here, the meal at Le Mill can burn deep holes in your pocket – but some things, including the above-mentioned gnocchi and glow-in-the-dark pillow cases by Bandit Queen – are worth daily trips to Parsi Dairy. 

Getting there: 17-25 Nandlal Jani Road, next to new railway bridge, Wadi Bunder, call 23742415, Rs 2,000 for a meal for two without alcohol.

bpb reviews all restaurants anonymously and pays for its own meals.