Cafe Oz brings a bit of 'Australiana' to Delhi

Built in a rustic style, the cafe, which has two outlets in Delhi strives to bring the Australian way of food and life into India."I first came to India around two years ago to research starting a chain here and found out that India lacked the cafe-culture," says Dolly Kaur, Indian-born entrepreneur from Australia.

"There were many other popular international chains which I thought had done a very good job to introduce a tea-drinking country like India to coffee, to the cappuccino, to latte," she says.

Kaur says she thought it was time for India to come to the next level and concentrate purely on coffee.

"The other cafes had done their part and introduced an international coffee drinking culture, now I felt it was ready to move on to the next level and introduce stuff like real Arabica beans etc to let people know about what makes coffee best," she says.
Inaugurating the cafe's second outlet in the capital recently, Australian Trade Commissioner to India Michael Carter says, "There is no better way to bring Australia and India together than fusing them with food and beverage.

"What is being tried here is to bring Australian wines, food ingredients and even beers to a beautiful fusion between Indian way of life and enjoying food and beverage in a very relaxed setting and really giving it a bit of Australiana."

Already opened in Chandigarh, new outlets of the cafes whose USP is Victoria Coffee and barbecues, and who advertise itself as "casual places to come in and have some fun" would soon be opened in Amritsar, Jalandar and Dalhousie.

"It suits to the Indian taste because it is not too much bitter," says Kaur.
The multi ethnic and multicultural country makes up for the lack of original cuisine through its spices.

"Australia is fusion of many cultures and that is being replicated in its food. We have interesting spices like Wattleseed, Lemon Myrtle and many of these spices have come from indigenous aborigines of Australia," says Carter.

Agrees Kaur, "Australia does not have its own cuisine. We call it Australian fusion food. We do have a lot of spices, native spices. We have brought food from a lot of countries in our menu to create Australian fusion food with Australian spices."

Meanwhile, the cafe uses several lingos such as 'tucker' (for food) and 'sammies' (for sandwiches) to give it an Aussie touch. The menu offers food like 'Outback smoked barbecued winglets', Ockkah (a mix of nuts, Australian native seeds and spices with virgin olive oil and lightly toasted ciabatta)or Australian Dukkah.

It also features a modern-style bar with a limited selection of alcoholic beverages.