Chennai’s Sortd Cafe offers cold brews, chilli chicken and work pods

The tables at Sortd have rounded edges to comfortably rest your elbows. The lights on the ceiling in the work pods there can be dimmed or made brighter, depending on the meeting in progress, the weather in Chennai, or the mood. The walls can be written on, and the shelves are stacked with Rubix cubes and spinners; for anyone who has the urge to click a pen or fidget through a meeting. I am handed a fidget spinner when I sit down to chat with the team behind this space.

If you have ever side-eyed someone in a cafe taking a loud phone call or earnestly chatting away on a Zoom meeting amidst all the coffee and chaos, what Sortd has to offer might seem most timely, and a rather interesting experiment for the city. 

Satha Annamalai and Kalpana Rao, the founders say they got chatting a couple of years ago about the idea for a space like this. “As someone who runs an IT services company, I realised that people were becoming less enthused about coming into the office. We instead wanted to meet occasionally, in a place where we could be productive, and have good food,” he says. Kalpana says she also began to wonder about why people head to a cafe to work in the first place, when there is no privacy or quiet. “Sortd has been conceived as a space not just to come in and work, but for those who enjoy being a part of a community. You can wear your earphones here and type away seated in a work pod, all while the cafe’s regulars walk in and out for coffee and food,” she says.  

The team behind Sortd- Satha Annamalai, Japtej Ahluwalia, Kalpana Rao, Chef Gopalsamy Mani and Manoj Padmanabhan
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

While Chennai’s ever-burgeoning cafe scene seems to now have it all, with pretty spaces, Instagrammable drinks and desserts, Sortd comes with work pods to work out of, small, aesthetically designed meeting rooms that can seat up to 10, a larger room on the terrace that can hold at least 40 people and of course, very Instagrammable art, and a glass house extension which houses a dining space overlooking their kitchen. 

Japtej Ahluwalia, partner at Sortd, and co-founder of BORN (Beyond Ordinary Restaurants and Nosh) points out that the work spaces are not relegated to a single floor and are instead, spread across both floors, alongside tables for the regular visitors. The work pods and meeting rooms can be reserved on an hourly basis through an online system which will become functional shortly.  

The turkish breakfast platter at Sortd Cafe. Shot On OnePlus #FramesOfIndia
| Photo Credit:
Sangita Rajan

“We do not want to be branded a ‘work cafe’,” says Manoj Padmanabhan, partner Sortd and Japtej’s co-founder at BORN. “This is a unique place, and the food and experience has been thought through, you can be productive here or use the space for entertainment. We are not a work cafe,” he reiterates.

The menu is more than indicative of how serious the team at Sortd is about making their food experience shine. Aiming to break away from the usual sandwich-pasta-pizza-coffee menus, the cafe has an extensive, eclectic menu, where one can find everything from salads with pomegranate molasses to tamarind rice with kola urundais and a deconstructed Madurai vada curry. Chef Gopalsamy Mani declares grandly that he was keen on working on a menu that is not the usual for Chennai, elevating the regular cafe food experience. 

A meeting room at Sortd
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Sure enough, the breakfast platter we sample comes with a mildly-flavoured avocado dosa, idlis, and vada fritters, an even crunchier spin on the medu vadas with an egg curry alongside the usual chutneys and sambar. If you are a bread fiend like me however, the Sri Lankan sausage curry bun, a pillowy bun stuffed with sausage curry and an egg scramble with a flavourful coconut sambol is the way to go. There are also pancakes, waffles and smoothie bowls as well as Malay and Turkish breakfast platters to choose from. 

The menu is a healthy mix of comfort and flair. We sip on some steaming hot chicken and drumstick soup, and also try a wholesome quinoa khichdi with edamame and crispy peas, both perfect for light, filling comfort meals. The field berry salad, which comes packed with strawberries, blueberries, melon, walnuts and burrata is a bit too creamy and rich, and yet, sweet and refreshing. There’s also the Sathappan chilli chicken, with perfectly cooked bits of chicken, and roasted bell peppers and cauliflower all tossed in a garlicky, honey glaze. 

Coconut matcha strawberry and Jim Jam latte
| Photo Credit:
Sangita Rajan

While there are a host of sandwiches, salads, pizzas and burgers, Chef Gopal’s inspired regional creations with influences from his Karur roots make for the more interesting additions to the cafe’s menu. The perfectly cooked lamb poppers, for instance, are served on a bed of jammy tomatoes and onions, and are accompanied by a tamarind rice and potato roast. The tamarind rice needed to be a punchier accompaniment.

What is a workspace without caffeine? There are cold brews, a South Indian as well as a Vietnamese filter coffee already on the menu, with brews also from a host of different roasteries soon to be made available. While the jim jam latte is a bit too sweet, Sortd gets an iced matcha drink right and does not resort to making it cloyingly sweet. The strawberry coconut matcha is perfectly balanced and refreshing.

The team behind Sortd is more than happy to play off the name of their café. Manoj explains that both the space and the menu are designed to suit a wide range of experiences; whether it is a family dinner, a solo coffee date, or a team meeting. “This is going to be a community space. You are sorted if you come here — for anything,” he says. Japtej echoes the sentiment: “Anyone who walks into Sortd should feel sorted.”

Sortd Cafe is at CV Raman Road, Alwarpet. A meal for two costs  ₹ 1,000. Contact 7200416603 for enquiries