The Coffee Academïcs - Discovery Bay — Restaurant in Islands District

I’d like to provide some constructive criticism on our breakfast experience this morning.

Firstly the coffee price is ridiculously expensive and quite frankly, not very good. Instead of having our second cup at the restaurant we left and ordered one elsewhere. My long black with apparently 2 shots was like dirty water and had the same consistency of a strong tea! It was poor!

The ordering system I like a lot, it’s very efficient, however I was then very surprised to see a 10% service charge on the bill. The servers bought our coffee, after our meal was delivered even though the coffee was ordered first and didn’t bring our breakfast meals together. Other than that we had no interaction with the staff so think 10% on an already overpriced breakfast is ridiculous.

I ordered the eggs royale and the Mrs had the avocado on toast, we both had extra bacon (which was lousy) and sausage which was very good and the only thing that was luke warm, the rest was outright cold! My guess is the poached eggs are cooked in advance and slightly reheated before going out. Both of our egg dishes were cold and hard boiled yolks. The dishes looked great and to be fair were quite tasty but we couldn’t get past that they were cold! The plates they are served on were awkward to eat from and made a shocking noise when cutting on them. We also ordered the sausage roll with a thimble of mashed potato! $68!! Ridiculous! Sausage roll was good, mashed potato was clearly only a menu filler to charge a higher price.

All in all we were very disappointed in this new arrival to our local community. Style over substance, a weak 4 out of 10! $579 for 2 peoples breakfast, pure extortion, we...

Way too expensive for what it is... As I walked in, the staff remained behind the counter, not a single hello or welcome. Sit down on your own (lots of space available) and scan a QR code to order. Ordered the 'smashed avocado sourdough with poached egg' (128HK$), added haloumi (20$) and salmon (30$). Reading from the paper menu I thought coffee was included, but no. Not on weekends... So, add a bad coffee (42$), and an industrial orange juice (32$). I was served a thin slice of toasted sourdough with smashed avocado, covered in salad and a single tiny egg on the side. The 20$ haloumi is a single tiny piece, and the additional 30$ salmon is low quality, looks like the cheapest money can buy in any supermarket. The Coffee was like dirty water, tasteless. And no surprise on the industrial orange juice. And the staff, it seems they are mute, except for the one who told me that the coffee wasn't included on weekends. Oh, there is an additional 10% 'service charge'. For what service, I wonder? Total bill 283. 8HK$ for a very disappointing and expensive breakfast experience... I won't be going back anytime soon, there are much better...

Because a restaurant's atmosphere is so entwined with staff attitudes and service, I'm going to go with a one star. After several disappointing experiences (reduced vegetarian options, persistently c* service, ie., lazy, blasé, outright dismissive at times) I reconciled myself to poor service as they were pet friendly, but then they used the pandemic as an excuse to exclude pets, which didn't help. The final straw was an exceptionally rude young woman, a new hire in 2023, who seems to be the manager (why I'll never understand) I had a run in with and have since discovered much better options in DB.

I recommend instead the quirky new DBrasserie by the bus station with a truly nice atmosphere and Uncle Russ coffee. Le Vain the bakery next to Coffee Academics makes an excellent (and far...