On a narrow staircase in South Delhi two decades ago, there began a story that would quietly reshape the way Delhi ate, lingered, and celebrated comfort food. Today, The Big Chill Cafe is a name woven into the city’s everyday life. It is where first dates stretch into hours, where families return after years, and where generations argue over whether the cheesecake is better than the chocolate fudge cake. Few cafés in the capital have achieved this kind of emotional permanence.
The Big Chill opened its first doors in 2000 in East of Kailash as a small ice cream and dessert café. It was never designed as a grand restaurant or a flashy launch. The idea was simple and quietly ambitious: serve well-made food, create a warm space, and let the rest grow organically. The founders, Aseem Grover and Fawzia Ahmed, came from worlds far removed from the restaurant industry. Grover was an Indian Army officer who had served with the Third Gorkha Rifles, with postings ranging from high-altitude terrains to a UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. Fawzia, a women’s rights activist and development-sector professional educated in the UK and the US, had spent years working with international organisations. During their time in Rwanda, their personal and professional journeys collided. What followed was a shared leap into entrepreneurship.
By the time they returned to Delhi in the late 1990s, both were ready for a new life. Fawzia had long harboured the dream of running a café, one rooted in warmth, food, and conversation rather than fast turnover. Grover took premature retirement from the Army to back that dream. What emerged in East of Kailash was The Big Chill’s first incarnation: an ice cream café serving American-style desserts at a time when such offerings were still rare in the city.
The response was immediate and telling. The dessert counter soon found a loyal following, and within a short period, a trattoria-style Italian menu was introduced. Risottos, pastas, pizzas, and grilled dishes slowly joined the repertoire, and the café’s identity expanded without losing its original soul. The food was comforting without being predictable, indulgent without feeling excessive. That balance would become the brand’s signature.
Years later, the original East of Kailash outlet would shut its doors, but by then the story had moved far beyond that first staircase. Today, The Big Chill operates across several prime locations: Kailash Colony Market, multiple addresses in Khan Market including the Big Chill Cakery, Connaught Place, DLF Promenade in Vasant Kunj, DLF Place in Saket, DLF Mall of India in Noida, and most recently, Ardee City Mall in Sector 52, Gurugram, marking its entry into that market. Its steady expansion has been deliberate rather than aggressive, resisting the temptation to become a mass franchise.
Walking into a Big Chill today still feels like entering a familiar set rather than a standardized chain outlet. The interiors are one of its most recognizable features. Brick-clad walls, distressed green woodwork, cast-iron pillars, and rust-coloured surfaces create a slightly retro, faintly theatrical atmosphere. Framed posters of classic Hollywood films, album covers of legendary musicians, and vintage tin signs cover the walls. The effect is not curated minimalism but layered memory. It feels lived-in, personal, and slightly indulgent, as if the space belongs as much to its patrons as to its owners.
Music plays a quiet but essential role in shaping the mood. Old-school rock, soul, and classics from another era filter gently through the dining rooms, giving the café a rhythm that encourages lingering rather than rushing. This is not a place built for quick laptop sessions or remote work marathons. It is designed for conversations, laughter, and time that unfolds at its own pace.
The crowd reflects the café’s wide emotional reach. Young professionals, families with children, college students, and older regulars share the same tables. It is youth-focused in energy, yet aged gracefully with its audience. That rare cross-generational appeal is part of what keeps The Big Chill relevant even after 25 years.
Food, however, remains the anchor. The menu has grown into an extensive Italian spread, but the philosophy remains unchanged: consistency over novelty. Dishes like mushroom risotto, Four Seasons pizza, grilled mains, and signature pastas are built on familiar flavours executed with dependable precision. Desserts are still the empire’s emotional core. Cheesecakes, fudgy chocolate cakes, tarts, and house-made ice creams arrive like old friends. Many patrons come not to experiment but to repeat an old favourite, confident it will taste exactly as memory expects.
The Big Chill’s newer offshoot, the Big Chill Cakery and Creamery, carries that dessert legacy forward in a more focused form. Styled like a vintage English patisserie, it offers cakes, pies, cookies, tarts, and fresh gourmet ice cream alongside light savoury options for lunches and high teas. Since its launch in 2015, it has grown rapidly in Gurugram and Noida, tapping into a market where dessert is often the destination rather than the afterthought.
What sets The Big Chill apart in a hyper-competitive café culture is not just its food or décor, but its owner-driven ethos. The cafés have retained the feeling of a neighbourhood space even as they occupy some of the country’s most expensive retail addresses. The service remains personal, the atmosphere informal without being careless. There is a quiet resistance here to trends that favour speed over connection.
In business terms, the café is a success story of controlled growth and brand loyalty. In cultural terms, it has become something rarer: a piece of Delhi’s shared memory. In a city where restaurants open and vanish with dizzying speed, The Big Chill has endured by refusing to chase novelty for its own sake. It has trusted familiarity, quality, and ambience as its long-term strategy.
Two and a half decades after that first dessert counter opened, The Big Chill continues to do what it has always done best: offer a space where food tastes like comfort and time seems to slow down just enough to matter. In a restless city, that may be its most enduring achievement.
