If ever Kathmandu's elite chattering classes had a caf? culture, then the beginnings of one can be seen at Chez Caroline at Baber Mahal. Writers, poets, artists gather in the veranda setting in an ambience that is so Mediterranean in its feel that it could be situated on the Left Bank of the Seine.

Just pronouncing its official name, Chez Caroline Salon de the' Caf? Restaurant, is a mouthful. The Caroline comes from Caroline Sengupta who first came to Nepal in 1969 at a time when Kathmandu was going through its hippie era. But Caroline was no flower child hanging out on Freak Street. India had always been on her mind, and Caroline took pains to learn Hindi in Delhi. Later, she began leading tour groups to different parts of India and eventually to Nepal.

"Things happen when they have to happen," she says, and Caroline's destiny led her to meet her husband-to-be, Utpal Sengupta, at the bar of the Shangri-La Hotel in Lazimpat in 1979. Caroline was there with a tourist group and Sengupta was General Manager of the hotel. A year later, they were married and Caroline Dominique added Sengupta to her name, bid au revoir to the glitz and glamour of her hometown of Paris, and settled down here. Although she still takes time off to travel to Paris every now and then, Caroline says, "I can't imagine living anywhere else."

Caroline has been involved in different activities from leading tourist groups to decorating the Shangri-La Village in Pokhara. She's even had a brief fling with journalism. All this changed when three years ago her husband came up with the Chez Caroline and asked her to run it. "I don't do it for the money," she says. "I wanted to provide a clean, hygienic and affordable place where people could come and just relax even if it's just a cappuccino they want."

What makes the place special is what Caroline breathes into it, and the complete harmony and understanding between Caroline and her team of 16 Nepali workers. "We work more like colleagues rather then employer and employees. If you give people pride in their work the performance is bound to be good," she says. The positive vibes emitted by the team may be just one reason why her clients keep coming back-not to forget the delicious assortment of her family recipes of salads, soups, and cakes.