Author’s Note
Some stories do not begin with ambition. They begin quietly — in the corner of a room, in the warmth of a cup, in the company of people who never knew they were shaping something.
When I opened the doors in August 2022, I wasn’t building a café. I was building a pause — a small refuge for anyone who needed a moment away from the noise. The menu was humble: coffee, omelette, maggi. Food that didn’t pretend to be anything more than comfort. I cooked while working, worked while cooking, and the people who came in became part of that gentle chaos. They read, they wrote, they built their dreams while I stirred mine on the stove.
But places have a way of growing beyond their intentions.
People tasted the food and asked for more. They stayed longer than they planned. They returned with others. They carried conversations that stretched into evenings. And slowly, without any grand announcement, Forwords began to expand — not because I pushed it, but because the people who sat here pulled it forward.
A year later, someone who had always believed in this space stood beside me, and the café began to stretch its wings. Then another joined. Then two more. Not colleagues, not partners — but the kind of people who walk into your life and quietly decide to hold up a corner of your dream. Together, we shaped a space that kept its soul but grew its wings. We added outdoor seating, brought in chefs, built a team, and crafted a menu that wandered across continents — Continental, Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Indian fusion — each dish made fresh, only when ordered. No shortcuts. No frozen batches. Just patience, honesty, and the belief that food tastes different when it is made with intention.
Forwords is still a library first — a place where silence has meaning. It is still a workspace — where ideas find their footing. It is still a café — where food is not rushed, and time is not the enemy. But above all, it is a story — written by everyone who has ever sat here.
Every review, every suggestion, every quiet smile across a table has become a sentence in this book we are still writing.
This café was never built to impress. It was built to belong.
And if you are reading this, then you already belong to its pages.
