Gurgaon is not for beginners

The lines outside Magnolia Gurugram are fascinating.

We grew up whisking eggs by hand — the old-school ritual of baking.
Most Indian bakeries were like that once.

Real ingredients. Real flavour. Real work.
Then we moved to NYC… and nothing had changed there.

Magnolia, the bakers on Rockefeller, the bakeries on Grove or Austin — all of them still baked the classic way: eggs, butter, technique, patience.

But by the time we moved back, India had rewritten the script.
Suddenly every bakery was “eggless”.

A magical new pre-mix powder had taken over the country — whisk for 30 seconds, bake, drown in chemical flavors, hide everything under fondant and syrup.

And the industry narrative became:
“Indians want eggless.”

As an F&B operator, let me say it plainly — that’s the biggest sham we quietly accepted.

“Eggless for the customer” became “cheap ingredients for the operator.” What is eggless mayo? we ruined a perfectly healthy condiment.

Coming from a traditional baking family, our first instinct was always to open a real, old-school bakery.

But the market had been manipulated so aggressively with fake narratives around vegan, eggless, chemical premixes, clean label claims — that authenticity was pushed into a dark corner.

And now… look at the queues outside Magnolia.

If Indians truly only wanted eggless, overly processed cakes,

Why are we lining up for old-school baking again?

Why did we once line up outside McDonald’s — the home of beef patties?

The truth is simple:
India was never against quality.
We were just fed a narrative because it was profitable to feed us that narrative.

So here’s the real question:

If Magnolia’s style wins again, are we ready to return to real cakes, real cupcakes, real textures, real ingredients — instead of margarine, premixes and chemical shortcuts?

Time will tell.

And who knows —
If India swings back to tradition, maybe we’ll float a proper, old-school bakery too.

One that builds city culture the way Magnolia once did for NYC.