Two years ago, Sanjana Patel, the chef behind Kala Ghoda chocolate store La Folie and its namesake cafe in Bandra, broke her right leg on a surfing holiday. It was a sign, she felt, to step back and regroup. "I couldn't stop at patisseries and boulangerie cafes. My background is chocolate. It was time to focus on the craft of serious chocolate making," says Patel, who is on the brink of throwing open the doors of Mumbai's first bean to bar chocolate factory. At the Factory Café in Mahalaxmi, she launched last month The Classroom, a cooking studio that will host pop-ups, classes and collaborations.

On a first-look tour of the factory, we crane our necks to see the light installation above us. A white wall carries three sculptures of the Theobroma cacao flower, Criola cacao pod and the sweet baba white pulp that holds the beans. Wood and cane chairs surround a few tables, but the main action lies on the other side of a giant glass wall. This space is the result of Patel's travels in a wheel chair, with husband Parthesh, across community farming spaces in Guatemala, Ecuador and the Amazon.