The Salon de The’ from L’Opera
The rise of the Bakery – L’Opera
Traditionally-and to this day–your pastry has to be just so. The right ingredients, sweetness, consistency and visual appeal, so does your bread. In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo imbues bread with a legal and moral status when Jean Valjean is arrested and incarcerated for stealing a loaf. In Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes gives bread an emotional weight, writing, “with bread, all sorrows are less” And then, there is the famous Mary Antoinette’s infamous but apocryphal response-“let them eat cake”- when she was told that the peasants had no bread. Everyone loves a good piece of cake. In India, the rise of good bakeries has been slow but sure. Across the globe though, from tiny places selling artisan bread to the more fancy ones, like Laduree are places to specially visit. L’Opera is one such bakery that is today expanding and yet still staying true to its roots.
Discover : The famous L’Opera Bakery
In 2010, French Bakery pvt ltd. started a home delivery service and the first outlets opened their doors early 2011. Owner Laurent Samandari, who is half French and half Persian, conducted a thorough 2 year market research before plunging head on with his very wonderful and supportive father, Kazem Samandari. With a very modern and very well equipped kitchen with equipment from Bongard and all major ingredients imported from France, like the flour, chocolate, butter and cream. With such a lineage, the product was bound to be very superior. Today Samandari, leads a team of 120 employees with 9 points of sales and growing. But the ingredients would remain just that, if it were not for the very talented Chef Amit Sinha, straight from Australia. He gives shape and flavor to all the things that we see and devour at the L’Opera outlets. From the traditional baguette, to the macaroons, to their signature Viennese pastries, Sinha has made sure L’Opera is steadily and surely gaining followers.
Salon de The’
India’s first ‘Salon de The‘ is being introduced by Laurent at the Epicuria in Nehru Place, trying to set a new trend in the Indian market for high-end culinary products. They may not have the traditional tea pots or the flute of champagne, (they don’t drink as they practice the Bahai religion) or grapefruit juice that a typical Salon de The’ would serve in France. But the menu does look exciting with a range of teas and light meals like a Brouillade – a dish from France’s Provence region – velvety, buttery, scrambled eggs served with a slice of house bread which is a baguette. The vol au vent translated means “winds blown”, here the puff pastry is indeed light and filled with béchamel chicken or a vegetarian version with fresh green salad. A croquet monsieur is as French as it can get here. You can also savor the Café Gourmand (A hot cup of tea or coffee accompanied by an assortment of mini pastries and salty items), perfect for high tea, on the cute green Parsian terrace.
