The first ever pet-friendly and pet café and restaurant in Kolkata, The Love Room is a must-visit for pet lovers in the city. You’ll be greeted by a family of nine adorable, furry canines, and if you’re more of a cat person, even four kittens. The owners, Ankush and Shruti, have put in a lot of dedication behind the pets, and it really shows.
The most innovative bit here is the specially curated dog menu – a full four-course meal!
You get two soups, four different snacks including pancakes and tacos, six different mains complete with pizza and steak, and three varieties of desserts including a frankly adorable cupcake. We wouldn’t really be able to tell you about the taste, but the dogs surely seemed to love it. You also get dog beer here if you’d want to share a drink with your tail wag, and the owners are also working on introducing cat wine to the menu, soon.
Moving on to what’s on offer for us humans:
- The Love Room’s new menu includes two soups of the day that keep changing. Our mushroom and vegetable soup was fairly decent, but a tad too heavy. The menu is still somewhat basic, but offer quite a few popular choices.
- For instance, you get cheese fondue, cheese balls, chicken wings with a choice of barbecue and tangy sauces, and more. The chicken wings we sampled were well-flavoured and crisp, but was probably slightly overcooked. The taste, though, is quite strong and enjoyable.
- Italian cuisine heads get seven pizza variations and three pastas in four sauces, and four salads.
- The melon and watermelon salad we sampled was sautéed in olive oil and garnished with feta cheese – a rather unusual combination. Nevertheless, there is a distinct freshness to it, and yet it carries its own weight. It also serves the purpose of looking quite interesting, sprinkled with pomegranate on a watermelon bed.
- You also get two variations of burgers – veg and chicken (fairly simple there). In mains, the vegetarian a la Kiev is quite well-cooked, but we would have liked a little more flavours and butter.
- Perhaps the best dish we sampled was the grilled fish in pesto rub – not just well-cooked but presented really nicely, with strong flavours to suit most palates. The pesto base is wonderful, with the fish being grilled to near perfection.
- Our journey at The Love Room concluded with waffles served with strawberries and fresh whipped cream – enjoyably light after a full course meal. You can also add on Nutella or maple syrup for an added charge, for added sweetness. Those who favour light desserts would definitely love this.
- The Oreo milkshake seemed quite popular, garnished with an Oreo on top, and the virgin sangria is also refreshingly tangy.
The thing is, The Love Room is a restaurant for the pets where you also come to enjoy a hearty meal, and not the other way ’round. You get a sense of affable hospitality as you can walk in with your pet any time between 11am and 10pm, and even get to spend time with one of the in-house fur balls.
Be sure to say hello to Ego the Siberian Husky, and you will be leaving The Love Room with a bright smile on your face. This is also a very important place in Kolkata’s food map, as many pet lovers often complain about not being able to take their dear pets to places. In such a place, The Love Room not only invites the pets, but is actually going the extra mile to come up with dedicated menus for them.
The owners, Ankush and Shruti, have been long-time pet owners and lovers, and are building the place up with a lot of care and love for pets.
The ambience in general is also fine, emanating a cafe-like feel. Like we stated before, you would go to The Love Room more for the pets. The food is quite good, too, but the dogs simply steal the show. We only wish the location was more to the main road as that would have made The Love Room more accessible. Seeing how they attract a hearty footfall in peak evening hours already, you may soon see a new branch opening up somewhere else in the city.
It is a wonderful, unique experience that is bound to bring a smile to your face.