A taste of Paris

Starting off as a food truck, Paris Panini now has a brick-and-mortar cafe in Indiranagar, serving French-style street food

SOPHIE

In 2015, Nicolas Grossemy started a food truck called ‘Le Casse-Croute’, that served French toasted sandwiches and fries on Lavelle Road. However, running the food truck in
the city soon came with many challenges, the lack of legal framework being one of them.

That’s when he focused on expanding it to brick and mortar and partnered with Abhijit and Nikhil Gupta of The Pizza Bakery to start ‘Paris Panini’, a French street food cafe in Indiranagar.

Panini which means toasted sandwiches in French; and here, it is made from bread freshly baked in their kitchen. It is extremely soft inside and has a slight crunch outside.

The dips are also prepared in-house using fresh basil leaves, egg
yolk and raw potato.

Painted in blue and white with wooden accents, the place will surely transport you to a European sidewalk cafe. The small and cosy cafe has both indoor and outdoor seating.

Given how dusty Indiranagar is currently, we preferred sitting indoors. It is a self-service place and the menu is hung on the wall.

As we settled down, we started our meal with ‘Le 51’, an in-house drink made of star anise and licorice. The watery drink had a mild sweet flavour and is apparently a popular drink in France.

Next came the ‘Veloute soup’, made of baby potatoes, pumpkin, carrot and cumin. The creamy texture of the soup was love in first slurp, it had a slight rawness of the baby potato and pumpkin. The soup was low on salt making the taste mild. The thickness was perfect in consistency.

The onion rings were coated in bread crumbs and wasn’t oily at all. It was crispy and fresh. The rings were served with a spicy cheese dip.

We opted for their gourmet panini as our next choice. My vegetarian friend went for ‘Sophie’, filled with of tomato bechamel, olives and cucumber, topped with fried onions and feta cheese. It was a mash-up of flavours — the crunch of the carefully sliced cucumber gave it a fresh bite and the mildly tangy tomato bechamel lingered in the mouth.

However, it was ‘Laura’ which stood out. The pesto-mozzarella panini was subtly flavoured, simpler and lighter on the palate. If you are a pesto fan, do give this a try. The molten cheese oozing out as you take the first bite is the most satisfying feeling.

‘Michel’, the chicken and cheese panini was a personal favourite and I would definitely go back for it. The generously spread garlic mayo, topped with French-style chicken (square-cut) curry garnished with sliced onion and fresh mozzarella cheese was quite wholesome.

Though the sandwich wasn’t heavy on the stomach, the kind that makes you feel sick, it was quite filling.

Don’t visit the place expecting highly spiced and flavoured food, it is quite mild; but experiencing a new cuisine is always a fun thing to do.

For dessert, we tried their ‘Homemade Dark Chocolate’ crepe, which was extremely soft and had slightly crispy edges. The generous layer of chocolate was extremely indulgent. It is one of their fast-moving items. This dessert is not too sweet, making it perfect for those, who don’t have a sweet tooth.

Paris Panini is located at #2984, 12th Main Road, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar. For details, call 99014 28604.