Amethyst in Chennai - A Review

After Sarangi, we stopped by Amethyst another boutique store at Whites Road (quite close to Express Avenue Mall), Royapettah. This is a cool posh place hidden from the bustling din of the main road, and the entry way itself seems to transport you to another time and place far away from the cacophony of a busy city life. Once you step into this land overflowing with (wild) shrubbery, you'll find a flower shop, a jewellery cum clothing store and a colonial styled coffee hangout place.

The entrance... with shrubs on either side.

A giant urn among the shrubbery.

 A little fountain in the garden...

The jewellery and clothing boutique is located upstairs and even though the whole arrangement looks nice and inviting, I couldn't really find anything worth buying here.

 

An art piece at the store...

The clothes seemed drab and messily complicated, like some new age fashion for the artsy / socialite types. It's not something your normal next door person would wear, so you end up leaving the place empty handed. The jewellery on the other hand is pretty interesting... I saw some rather interesting antique gold necklaces and studs, like the queens of ages past used to wear, of course I wasn't allowed to photograph them. After roaming around the place and deciding that we couldn't find anything worth spending money on, we headed downstairs into the coffee place.

 

This is a quaint little place with checkered floors and old colonial furniture strewn here and there. We ordered a slice of cheesecake, a smoked bacon sandwich and a cold coffee drink.

 

Desserts on display...

 

The cheesecake was just plain cheese and without that fruit preserve at the side you couldn't really eat it, twas too bland and even the texture wasn't smooth. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be... haven't really eaten that many cheesecakes in my life to know the difference. 

The sandwich which was good (it's bacon and cheese, what's not to like) was drenched in butter, it was literally flowing down my fingers. I had to press the sandwich between tissue papers to stop the flow, other than this stream of butter, the sandwich was quite scrumptious. The coffee/chocolate cold drink was okay, bananas were blended into it and I felt weird drinking this concoction... but my sister liked it. The pricing is a little high, after all its a posh boutique that distances itself from the crazy world outside.But its a nice cool place to hangout, there weren't many folks around... but most of the tables had a reserved sign.

I guess expatriates frequent this place, saw a few of them...and this family seemed to be having a marvelous time. All in all, the coffee place is really nice but the rest of the boutique just screams show-off. Even while photographing the outside seating area, I was told that photography is not allowed. That pissed me off, I was just photographing a bunch of chairs and tables that were arranged in a nice garden with lamps around... I understand not photographing jewellery, after all anybody could copy their style. But telling me not to photograph the garden reeked of snob-ism. Anyway, I did like the coffee place and I'll definitely visit it again when the chance arises.

 

The exterior coffee hangout place... 

Few urns and a terracotta horse on display...

 

There were so many pictures of Krishna like this in the coffee place, and Nameeta (my sister) while sipping her cold coffee wondered aloud whether the thick gold chain this guy was wearing would go well with her wedding saree... that really cracked us up.