Escoffier (Bakers & Confectioners)

You can find us at Central Plaza, located at 2/6 Sarat Bose Road in Kolkata. This area is always full of life, with cars honking and people walking by at all hours. We are a small team of bakers and confectioners. Our day starts way before the sun comes up because that’s when the ovens need to be hot. By the time the shops in Central Plaza start opening, we’ve already been at it for hours. The smell of flour and sugar is just part of our clothes now. It’s a small shop, so we have to be careful not to trip over each other when we’re moving trays around. We make a variety of things, mostly the kinds of cakes and breads that people in this part of Kolkata have grown up eating. We aren't trying to reinvent anything, just making sure the quality is what it should be. The glass display cases need cleaning every morning, and we spend a lot of time organizing the boxes for orders. Sarat Bose Road has changed a lot, but we try to keep things consistent here. It’s a lot of physical work, standing on our feet all day and dealing with the heat from the kitchen. We don't have a big marketing team or anything; it's just us behind the counter. We take things as they come and try to keep the shelves full.