This Chennai dessert boutique provides a platform for homebakers, and music recommendations to go with the goodies

There is a lot one can discover over dessert. As I plunge my spoon into a gooey chocolate cake, my palate is surprised by what lies beneath: shreds of coconut, coated in luscious Belgian chocolate.

Keeping me company is a soulful Nepali track — a recommendation by the Sweet Spot team. It came written on a neon sticky note, attached to the neat box laden with brownies, tarts and cookies. Sweet Spot, started in April by Zeeshan Anees, Ahad Anaikar, Mohamed Faraaz, Pooja Reddy and Mohamed Samee aims to give home bakers a platform to promote their products. The desserts are sold under the label of the person who created them, explains Samee. The idea is not to monopolise the dessert market, but to even out the playing field. And along with the goodies come song recommendations from the team. These include: ‘Hataarindai, Bataasindai’, ‘Parchaiyon Main’, ‘Heat Waves’, ‘100 words’…

“The idea came to us during the last lockdown, when we noticed an increase in home bakers. We were ordering a lot of desserts from them,” says Samee. Soon, they transformed a small space, in the same compound as the old Nolita (in Nungambakkam), into a dessert parlour.

The team put all interested home bakers through a series of quality checks, filtering out what did not work for them. “Earlier, the concern most clients had with home bakers was, they had to order two days in advance or buy a full kilogram of cake, even if all they wanted is one slice,” says Samee. Now, these wrinkles have been ironed out.

On an average, the boutique features items by 15 home bakers, the number goes up to 20 during the weekends. Each bakers typically stocks two to three of her creations. “Sixty to 70% are products by our anchor brands such as Meltz by Aishwarya, Whisk by Safra, Serendipia, Chef Srishti, Coucou, Baked by Faz, Zoya’s bakes, and the rest are from upcoming bakers,” says Samee.

The best-sellers include milk chocolate salted caramel cake, baklava tart and dark chocolate cheesecake. The latest entrant on the menu is sheer shahi kurma. They are trying to bring in variety with Indian desserts as well as savoury snacks like quiches and cream cheese-filled Korean buns.

On weekends they sell out. Their clients order from as far as ECR, Chrompet, Madipakkam and Velachery. The number of orders range from anywhere between 70-100 a day.

Order via their Instagram page, @sweetspot_chennai.