The night before Finale’s launch, the bar is festive with the scent of freshly browned butter, just-pulled espressos and a pile of leftover pizza. As her young team whisks, stirs and sifts, bouncing energetically between a wall covered in hand-written recipes on Post-its and their workstations, Anuhya Reddy beams contently. It is late and they have been on their feet all day, fuelled solely by Domino’s pizzas, judging by the cartons collecting in an unsteady pile amidst laptops, notebooks and bags of gourmet ingredients. She couldn’t be happier.
Finale, the dessert bar tucked into a side street in Gopalapuram, leading off the busy Cathedral Road, is a tiny space with big dreams. Currently serving a limited menu, which includes fluffy brioche doughnuts, buttery shortbread and tall elegant cakes, it is already creating a buzz and will gradually start offering experimental plated desserts.
When Anuhya’s parents sent her to London in 2018 to study Architecture, they did not expect to welcome home a baker two years later. “I went to do my Masters at the Royal College of Art. And then midway I decided to quit, and I asked the college to transfer my fee to Le Cordon Bleu,” she says. Her parents had no idea she had shifted to culinary school. “I did it without approval — but I was working part time at Starbucks first, then with Peggy Porchen and I realised I liked working in the kitchen more than studying Architecture.”
