The Coffee Academïcs (Johnston Road) — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

They forgot my brother's muffin. They did not apologise because they think they are cool. The coffee was nice, creamy but a bit small. More expensive 'special' coffee is so small it is hardly worth the effort to order it. My carrot cake was ok. The cheese cake was alright. The muffin looked like it was out of a packet. The menu is hard to read because of pretentious 'design'. The older lady does all the washing up which is ageist. Found a bit of rubber band in one of our coffees. They gave us a discount of the price of one coffee and apologized. Have to wait too long for everything, to take an order or to pay or to tell them they forgot stuff etc. Overall, it was not great but didn't ruin my day. It was ok.

This is a second review, I returned a week later. They offered four of us a really small table even though there were single people on massive tables. I asked to sit at a larger one and the guy just shrugged and pointed at the tiny table. I then told him where I was willing to sit and sat at an appropriately sized table. Took ages to get service but the waitress, Olivia seems nice. She was labelled as new staff, seems she has not learned the bad habits of the other staff yet. Asked for two Cappuccinos but received one latte. After correcting the order they bought one more latte. My bro had tea presented in a weird metal pot. It was like a novel looking French press. My cake expert friend said carrot cake was not cinnamony enough. She also said she didn't like it becuase it had too many nuts and raisins. I thought the cake was ok. It was covered in a fair bit of carrot though, like a salad on a cake. Bit weird. My friends also pointed out that Olivia was a bit uppety. I think I didn't notice because I thought she was kinda hot. Not saying she is hot, think I'm just a bit horny today. All the other staff are effeminate men with sulky faces. We asked for milk and sugar but it did not come. My bro asked for milk a second time but the sulky men ignored him. He had to bark instructions at them to get them to respond. The loo was full of massive grimey bleach cannisters and floor looked like it had not been mopped in months. There was a thick layer of dust on the toilet roll dispenser. There was an ironic sign asking customers not to make a mess and keep the toilet clean. That should not be an excuse to have a loo that is not clean enough for wild animals to use. The music was too loud but we all liked it. The place looks a bit shabby, it was supposed to look hipster but the clutter was not all fake, it just needed a bit of tidying up. The tea was ok. The pink lemonade was really good. The latte was good, just the...

I want to preface this one by saying that usually I don't bother leaving reviews very often even if it's good or bad, but I've got to be honest here, I felt extremely ripped off here.

I understand that Hong Kong is not a big coffee location, but my friend found this place on a list of recommended coffee locations in Hong Kong. Being big coffee drinkers, we were quite excited when we randomly happened upon one so we went in.

We ordered four cups of the hand poured filter brew between us and the bill came to 387HKD, roughly £40. Each cup was only 250ml at roughly £10, and to be quite frank the coffee was very disappointing in both volume and taste.

The service was also shoddy. We arrived at half 7pm and from the moment we arrived our server (didn't get a name) seemed in a rush to just get us out of there as quick as possible, despite still having an hour and a half before closing and with at least three or four staff members on hand to help with the quiet closing shift.

We did stay until closing having a chat between us because we were also meeting other people there before leaving, but near the end our server kept reminding us of the closing hour and the moment we finished our coffee he rushed over with the bill and just set it down without a word.

Also the snack selection was quite lacking. As stated before, we were meeting other people there, they weren't going to order, we were just meeting up before going to dinner. We were a bit hungry but didn't feel like having a lot. There were only two items on the snacks menu, neither really appealed to us and plus they stopped serving snacks at 6pm. We weren't going to order dinner there so the only other option was dessert and that just made even less sense.

Overall the poor quality of coffee and service, plus the lack of range really raises multiple questions such as why we had to pay that much or why it was even recommended in the...

Visited this place because of its beautiful ambience and chic design from the outside. I was waiting for a friend so I decided to order coffee to stay, then my friend arrived and this server gave the menu. We told him he will not be ordering as we will leave soon and go somewhere. This staff rudely said “if you seat here, you need to order”. Then we insisted to pay the bill as we had to leave and I’d just have my coffee in a takeaway cup. He firmly and rudely remarked that we cannot leave and need to order something. We dont want to cause any commotion or involve into unnecessary argument so my friend just ordered a drink.

I further asked the server if there is a notice or sign written somewhere about the guest cover charge then he just said “It is our company policy”.

We understand every establishment imposes policies or “standards” of service but they should at least train their staff especially the front of the line ones how to properly convey this information to the guests. I am an F&B professional myself and this experience was utterly disappointing and such a downgrade, especially not expecting it from Hong Kong where most of the industry professionals should be adept and well knowledgeable about quality service.

I do hope this message reaches management so they can mitigate the issue and have proper solutions in place to avoid more guests leaving such a nice coffee establishment or any other restaurant unhappy. After all, I just wanted to have a good cup of coffee on a nice day. Definitely not how I wanted my...