Chennai’s new cafe Bask by Coffee? encourages you to linger

Chennai’s Bask by Coffee?, set in a sprawling converted bungalow, brings people together using community dining tables, comfort food and high tech espressos

“I want to call this the Tinder table. Or maybe the Bumble table,” chuckles Nirav Shah, discussing the 24-seater community table that occupies pride of place at his newly-launched café, Bask. “Or, let’s call it the Swipe Right table,” he says, clearly delighted at the idea. “A lot of people will end up making friends here.”

In 1999, Nirav and his two brothers, Bhavesh and Pratik, started a little coffee shop on Chennai’s quiet, leafy Greenways Road, with a short vegetarian menu, a basic Krups home coffee machine and a good idea, backed with the courage that comes from having no experience. They were straight out of college, and the space — named Coffee? — quickly filled with friends, and friends of friends, till it closed in 2008.

In 2021, almost two decades after the first launch, they came together again on a whim to see if they could recreate that magic, in a city that seemed very different from the one they knew in the 1990s. Launched just as the pandemic was slowly petering out, ‘Coffee since 1999’ was helmed by Nirav, by now a well-known cinematographer, as well as Bhavesh and his wife Mona, both of whom had worked with Chennai’s popular Satyam Cinemas.

This time, however the Krups wouldn’t cut it — they invested in a swanky Italian Sanremo Opera 2.O for the espressos, and added all the necessary accoutrements required of a new age coffee shop: the chemex, V60, Aeropress and Kalita.

The space was quickly packed, again with friends, and new-found friends. So now, they’re taking their next leap of faith and setting up a second café at a sprawling bungalow on Kasturi Rangan Road, called Bask by Coffee? And this time, their Italian Sanremo Opera is teamed with Flow, an innovative coffee telemetry system that ensures consistency.

Spread over 5,000 feet, Bask bravely puts its faith in Chennai’s weather — with lots of relaxed outdoor seating. “We are looking at creating a casual café, with great food and coffee,” says Nirav, adding that the first open area will become their most social space. “We can use it for events, like stand up comedy, or live music.” It flows into a quieter zone behind shaded by trees. The air-conditioned area has a couple of semi-private rooms, and an old-school mosaic staircase, worn with age, leads to a breezy balcony upstairs.

Bask has been built to encourage conversation. “We want this to be a community space, just like Coffee?’ says Nirav. Over refreshing glasses of citrusy cold brew, and a platter filled with creamy hummus, roasted chickpeas and crunchy sourdough toast, Mona explains how her customers at Coffee? treat the café as a third space, after home and the office, using it to network and hangout. “We have people who come everyday, and even customers who come twice a day,” she says, adding that they hope Bask will offer a similarly welcoming vibe.