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With a primary focus on bringing a variety of cheesecake options to India, Ruchyeta Bhatia and Chef Amit Sharma created “Love & Cheesecake,” now known as Poetry by Love & Cheesecake, in November 2012. The restaurant later grew to include additional sweets and the informal dining concept “Poetry.” With a focus on using only the best, freshest ingredients and producing distinctive products like savory cheesecakes, Love & Cheesecake has grown naturally without outside assistance and now runs 23 company-owned locations that are supplied by their central kitchen.
Love & Cheesecake transformed their passion into “Poetry,” a full-service restaurant, in 2016. Its original location was in Bandra, a busy district of Mumbai. Poetry is currently present in six locations in Mumbai. Among other things, she talks about the brand’s identity, growth, and expansion in an exclusive interview with Restaurant India.
How did they get started?
In two distinct styles, what began as a 200 square foot experimental kitchen in 2012 has expanded to become one of Mumbai’s premier luxury food and beverage destinations.Ruchyeta traveled to Australia to meet Chef Amit, her business partner. They agreed to launch the company together. There weren’t many options for cheesecake in India at the time, so the plan was to launch a new dessert product line. As a result, we made the decision to enter this uncharted market.
The Brand Name’s Concept
Love’s eternal nature serves as the basis for the brand name. Bhatia highlighted their emphasis on quality, consistency, and customer-first strategy, with signature dishes and quick delivery, all of which are fueled by a seasoned culinary crew.Known for creating edible dessert art, Love & Cheesecake has eight dessert-only cafés and serves more than 56 natural cheesecake, cake, and confection flavors. It is unique in that it is the only dessert café in Mumbai that uses real Italian dessert cheese rather than whipped cream.“Our goal when we started Poetry in 2016 was to create the most luxurious breakfast experience in Mumbai, with everything from cold-pressed juices and specialty brews to hearty salads, comforting mains, and decadent desserts—all of which are delicious, natural, and fresh,” Bhatia explained.
Growth throughout time
Thanks to the vision of its founders, Ruchyeta and Chef Amit, Love & Cheesecake now employs over 300 full-time, devoted staff members, has a dedicated call center for flawless customer service, and an 8,000-square-foot central kitchen where it manages all of its production for both Love & Cheesecake and Poetry.
Logistics and Central Kitchen
Although live cooking was used at the original Bandra location, Bhatia said that all dessert and bread goods are now prepared in a 20,000 square foot central kitchen in Bandra. They then use their own refrigerated delivery vehicles to supply all of their outlets, keeping logistics under control. She emphasized the cake company’s exceptional capacity to deliver any size cake anywhere in the city in two hours.
The Brand’s Perspective on Nutritious Food
Since 2012, Ruchyeta Bhatia has made a point of using only dairy products and foregoing whipped cream in favor of healthier options. In order to maintain freshness, they stated that their sweets have a limited 36-hour shelf life, are typically low in sugar, and don’t contain any emulsifiers or preservatives. Although they don’t have completely “sugar-free” options because of worries about sugar alternatives, they do have very low-sugar or naturally sugar-free products.
The inventive products
Savory cheesecakes and unusual flavor combinations in chocolates and cheesecakes, such as bhut jolokia nutella cheesecake and balsamic strawberry chocolate, are among the creative choices. They frequently change their menus, including new cheesecake flavors every three months and poetry menus every six months. Another noteworthy item on the menu is the annual mango meal. One of their famous products is red velvet cheesecake, which was a major invention when they first started.
Obstacles Encountered
According to Bhatia, managing a firm entails daily difficulties with financial issues, staffing, and personal bandwidth. Their strategy is to put in a lot of effort and fix issues continuously. Since cheesecake was not popular in 2012, the greatest obstacle was getting buyers to understand the concept.
Maintaining Quality and Consistency
Bhatia attributed consistency and quality to their senior and long-standing team of chefs, many of whom have worked with them for more than ten years and have experience in five-star hotels. “At the store level, they also have strict procedures, such as putting codes on each slice to track its batch and freshness.”
Strategy for Businesses
Because the company aims for long-term stability, it places more emphasis on technology and developing systems to reinforce their product than it does on following trends. Seventy percent of their revenue comes from dining, while 25–30% comes from delivery (aggregators, not their own).
Strategies for Marketing and Growth
The company uses a variety of marketing techniques, but historically has kept marketing expenditures low (less than 0.5 percent of yearly revenue), preferring to rely on word-of-mouth and high-quality products to develop the brand naturally. The next five to six months will see the opening of nine more Poetry by Love & Cheesecake locations in Pune and Mumbai.
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