Food review: Di Bella coffee in Shivaji Park, Mumbai

‘Let’s catch up over a cup of coffee’ is an overused term. And while most meetings, hanging out and catching up does happen over a cuppa, we have learnt to accept the concoction in the cup as coffee. Some places serve you a milky variety, some do a filter kaapi and the modern day coffee shops that have replaced the once-ubiquitous Iranis, give you lattes, cappuccinos and more with chocolate sauces and flavors if you fancy. These coffee chains charge a premium for serving you that cup but what they really charge you for is the table that you use for dates, meetings, reunions and what not.

 

Shivaji Park has seen a beeline for a table at the two coffee chains that have made themselves indispensible to the social neighbourhood. It was the conversations and not the coffee that was important to most patrons. And there seems to be hope. Di Bella coffee makes its presence felt on the noisy Cadell Road, at the border of Shivaji Park and Mahim and it serves some brilliant coffee.  

 

The Australian coffee chain serves a fancy cup of coffee as you order your poison over a fancy Tab. While you choose the coffee blend that best suits you, you might still want to signal politely for some help from the staff. After all, coffee blends can be quite daunting!

 

What you notice when the coffee arrives is that it doesn’t come in a standard cup or a mug. Every coffee comes in a unique mug which enhances your experience. Would the cappuccino taste different if it came in a simple cup without the swirl with a dash of caramel? I don’t know. But the swirl cup lightly laces each sip of my coffee with molten chocolate and I don’t exactly complain even though I prefer my coffee without sugar or chocolate. I prefer saving those calories for something to eat. It is a given that a good cup of coffee feels rather cheerful when it has food to keep it company. But the food experience at Di Bella is rather underwhelming. While the chicken in the sandwich is slightly tough, the chocolate muffin is a crumbly and tasteless. The chicken junglee puff makes up for the disappointment by its predecessors. The chocolate marble brownie that follows is sheer decadence. But let’s not be distracted by all the food. That’s not what Di Bella is about. It is about the coffee which is 100% imported and we are told that it is directly sourced from the farmer, which makes it ethical coffee!

 

We order the Flat White, which is almost the same as a latte as far as we knew, but at Di Bella, it is a lighter, smoother version of the Latte. The café Mocha comes with fancy apparatus, where a tea-light is meant to keep it warm at the bottom — much like woks served at Chinese restaurants. The apparatus fails because the tea-light doesn’t stay on for too long.

 

As we are set to leave, we are told that the food menu is set to be revamped to the original Australian menu, and that there will be Wifi access and ability to order coffee take-outs online. Di Bella takes the coffee experience to a new suave, but the fancy crockery, the Galaxy tab and all frills aside, the coffee served is excellent and the blends offer a unique chance for connoisseurs to experience a cuppa without having to get their hands and filters dirty.

Di Bella
West Wind, Cadell Road, Shivaji Park
Average cost of coffee: Rs100-150