Everyone accepts a sweet scroll at four o’clock. The interesting question is what happens at nine.
A cinnamon scroll is not really a cake. The dough underneath it is enriched — butter, a little sugar, egg — but it is closer to a soft bread than to a sponge. Almost all of the sweetness in a finished scroll comes from the cinnamon sugar rolled through it and whatever goes on top afterwards.
Take that filling out and swap it, and the dough does not fight you. It carries tomato and mozzarella the way a focaccia would, and it holds a pesto without turning greasy. The spiral does the rest: because the filling is rolled through rather than spread on top, every turn of the coil has sauce in it, all the way to the middle.
That is the whole idea. A sweet scroll is a treat, bought occasionally, at predictable hours, by people who have decided to indulge. A savoury scroll is a meal — bought at any hour by people who are simply hungry. It is why our counter still makes sense at nine in the evening, and it is the part of the menu almost nobody else in India is making.
It is the same enriched, buttery scroll dough used for a sweet cinnamon scroll, layered with a savoury filling instead of cinnamon sugar. Grata Bakehouse in Gurugram makes two, both ₹249 — a Marinara scroll with tomato marinara and melted mozzarella, and a Pesto scroll with basil pesto and mozzarella. Because the dough is only lightly sweet to begin with, it behaves like a soft bread once the sugar is removed, which is why a savoury scroll eats like a meal rather than a dessert.
Grata Bakehouse makes them. You can eat them at the café at Shop SF-098, First Floor, DLF Galleria, Gurugram, or order on Swiggy and Zomato across Gurugram and South Delhi from kitchens in Sushant Lok, Greater Kailash I and Vasant Kunj. Very few bakeries in India make a savoury version of the scroll at all.
Both of Grata’s are. The Marinara scroll uses tomato marinara and mozzarella; the Pesto scroll uses basil pesto and mozzarella. Each is ₹249 and contains gluten and dairy; the Pesto also contains nuts.
A Spanish Latte at ₹289. Savoury and salted wants something sweet and milky beside it rather than something sharp, and the condensed milk in a Spanish latte does that better than a straight cappuccino.