FREEWHEELING with Freedom Tree
Where the focus is you, with coffee conversations & cuisine.
We sit down with sisters Isha and Mansi of VANILLA MIEL over two days in their beautiful cafe for some honest conversations about work & life. Shared in two part series. Isha animatedly shares her creative vision and Mansi the execution challenges.
vanilla_miel
March 2025
Finding Pause
"Just pause and enjoy, because Bombay is too fast for everyone” says Mansi setting the tone for the deep dialogues ahead. It is a journey to get to our space here with the roads, so it's genuinely gratifying, that you've made that trip and can enjoy this moment for yourself.”
Completing each other's sentences, Isha and Mansi describe the mental switch, “The walk-up to the cafe, that was very important for us. Being off a busy street with roadblocks has an unexpected advantage: we've had people come and say, ‘oh my God, the roads are all blocked. But oooh, nice café,’ that switch- because they're not expecting it, right?”
“We looked at eighty places before we said this location feels right. While searching, we didn't know what it was. but we knew what it wasn't. We chose this space as something that would look so beautiful with our vibe and aesthetic! Isha put down an offer even before I saw the space, and I'm the lawyer in this relationship!” exclaims Mansi.
Monochrome Canvas
W“I think the ethos of this entire place was to create a canvas: one, for people to pop and two, for food to pop. Everything you'll see, it’ll be grey on grey or white on white, and wood for warmth. Every texture is built to make you feel hungrier, and to highlight what needs to be highlighted. The focus is you, your conversation, and your food.”
The old house when first viewed, was divided into pocket sized rooms. Vanilla Miel as a brand is about transparency and honesty through their food and their team. When the sisters took over the space, they wanted the space to be open and flooded with natural light. Very simply: inviting and comfortable so that you keep coming back. “It needs to feel like home at its core, irrespective of the aesthetic.”
With her creator’s vision, Isha wanted it to look like someone's living room, whilst Mansi felt that each room was very personality driven. "The pastries and the chocolates that needed to be the focal area would get lost in the furniture, walls and the paintings. We also didn't have the budgets and literally dialled back the whole idea and made sure that the pastries were the hero through-and-through.”
Nod to the Neighbourhood
W“When I really think about this place, it’s that we've done very little. The neighbours have done most of the work,” Isha said with gratitude. There is a beautiful lemon tree, a Bougainvillea, and the plants are for the pleasure of everyone passing through. On a board outside is written a small letter to the people that come to the cafe, expecting them to respect the neighbourhood.
Recognising that the eatery is foreign to this ecosystem, they want to try and integrate into that DNA. Which is a big reason they don't offer parking, or a valet service, always helping to keep the environs pristine. “We encourage people to walk. The residents care deeply about their streets, and care deeply about the people entering their community. It's important to maintain the sanctity of the village because it helps us draw people in.” says Mansi.
Honey Yellow
WIts takes courage to put less, instead of more. While waiting to be indulged, our eyes see the details that have been worked into the space: whitewashed teak chairs in contrast to perfectly chamfered stone tables. Palette knife strokes, like icing in masonry, artfully hold aloft desserts. A honey-gold swirl runs like cake ribbon across the ceiling. “We were very conscious that we wanted to go back to the minimal. Our yellow has always been synonymous with us - inspired by the honey or the ‘miel’ which is part of our name.”
Mansi concedes a lot of yellow exists in the food industry, especially with fast-food chains. They needed a yellow that whispered luxury, not shouted stridently. “The lemon tree inspiration from our neighbour’s garden really helped us in choosing this soft color. Having it up in the ceiling as a ribbon keeps it in a peripheral line of vision. A second glance piques the interest. How is it hanging? Is it suspended? Is it floating? I think for us, this is the absolute highlight piece.” When you walk past the cafe at night, you see these floating yellow bands, piquing your curiosity to come visit. Curiouser, the multiple surfaces of the ribbons help to absorb sound in the space.
The Food Journey
WFor Isha, the creator, “My food ethos has always been very simple. It is when I eat something, or when you eat something that we've made, it must make you feel happy. It's a basic need. I’ve never cooked for ego. I've always cooked for comfort.”
“My own personal style came when we started working together. And I was just like, what's palatable to us in India? Because there could be restrictions. Can't use egg, can't use XYZ, and the fat percentages are different. We had to tailor all these recipes, so we did a lot of trials. I had all my school friends come in and fill all these massive feedback forms, and what I realized through that process is: people eat to remember a happier time. I found my architecture to remind me of a simpler happier time. It can be complex in technique or preparation, but the emotion must be simple.”
Food as Happiness
WIsha’s technique comes from all the chefs she has worked with. “Paul Kennedy and Kristin Tibballs, I would say are the foremost influencers of my style of pastry.” Her influences span traditionalist to the modern across two continents in very different countries. Also more subtle lessons – a product must not just resonate with the people eating it, but be a wonderful recipe: scalable to produce and economical to sell.
“I've learned from a lot of people. I've worked with some wonderful chefs, and some of it has been hard - I've gotten fired. People who look at the entrepreneur I am today are like, ‘you must be great’. I was not the best employee in one of my jobs, but even that taught me something. I learned a lot of techniques, a lot of discipline, and the ability to take criticism about my work, my food, the finishing. You have to take criticism to get better, because you're always very close to your creation.”
WWe ask them how they go about testing and developing their menu. “I think when you create something, whether it's home food or dessert, you always have this challenge because it's subjective, right? Taste is subjective. So, you'll always have a fair bit of the audience that will absolutely love it and be like ‘this is the right direction’, but you will also have a fair bit who will say, ‘look, in this could be better. This was too bitter or this was too sweet,’ because the taste palate is highly subjective.
When we launched, we did one single focus group for our desert line with feedback from all of our friends and family. We had these detailed note cards. We didn't let them leave till they gave us detailed feedback about every product that we were to launch!”
“If you look at that edit versus the flavors that we have evolved into today, the aesthetic is different, the technique is different, and the finesse is different. But that was the only focus group we ever did. Study your numbers. A smart way to do it is limited drops, test the market, and see how it works. Post-that it's mainly been Isha, me and a couple of friends we really trust, my husband and partner, and a couple of other people who we know have different palates. If the four or five of us are happy with the dish overall, we'll put it on the menu.
Get the benefit of this combined expertise and the patissieres’ creations. Find a moment of sweet respite from the busy city in the by lanes of Bandra.
Part two here :
W"Not enough people talk about it; The entrepreneurial journey is hard at any scale."
