Restaurant India News: FES Expands with Cookie-First Café Format in Delhi

FES Café is set to open its new flagship outlet in Delhi's Lodhi Art District on June 10, marking a strategic move by the brand to strengthen its position within India's evolving dessert and café market. The three-level outlet represents the company's latest expansion initiative and reflects its focus on establishing cookies as a standalone category within the organised foodservice sector.

The launch comes at a time when consumer preferences are increasingly shifting towards experience-driven dining formats and specialised dessert concepts. Traditionally, cafés in India have centred their offerings around coffee, with desserts occupying a supporting role. FES is seeking to challenge that model through a format designed around cookies and dessert-led consumption occasions.

Spread across three floors, the flagship has been conceptualised around the fictional identity of the "Cookie Dealer" and aims to offer a hospitality experience built on desserts, social interactions and community engagement.

The ground floor, known as "The Shop", will function as the primary operational area where cookies are freshly baked, beverages are prepared and takeaway orders are fulfilled. The first floor, called "The Loft", has been designed as a seating space intended to encourage longer visits and group interactions. Meanwhile, the second floor, named "The Lab", focuses on brand storytelling through visual installations, projections and music-led experiences.

The café also incorporates interactive design elements and hidden references throughout the space to encourage repeat visits and deeper customer engagement.

At the centre of the offering are FES's 100-gram eggless cookies inspired by New York-style formats. The menu features a combination of signature and rotating products, alongside desserts and beverages including Dark Chocolate Monster, Dirty Tiramisu, Banoffee Cloud, matcha-based drinks, shaken coffees and seasonal specials.

The company continues to drive consumer engagement through its Dessert of the Month (DOTM) initiative, which introduces limited-edition desserts and experimental flavour combinations on a recurring basis.

Vidur Mayor, Founder and CEO, FES Café, said, "We've always believed India's dessert culture was far bigger than the formats available to consumers. With FES, the vision was never just to sell cookies, it was to build a category-defining habit around them. The Lodhi flagship is our biggest step towards that vision."

Rini Joshi, Chief Marketing Officer, FES Café, added, "With this flagship, we wanted to build more than a café. We wanted to create a world consumers could step into repeatedly, one that feels warm, social, nostalgic, and alive. The idea is to make cookies part of culture, not just consumption."

The launch reflects the growing diversification of India's café landscape, where operators are increasingly experimenting with niche formats centred around specific products and consumption occasions.

FES has built a presence within Delhi's dessert segment through its New York-style cookies and community-focused initiatives. The opening of its flagship outlet signals the brand's intent to strengthen its footprint within the organised café market while testing the viability of a cookie-first hospitality model in India.