Darjeeling Cafe Varkala — Restaurant in Kerala

During our trip to Varkala, we faced a significant challenge—most restaurants stop serving lunch after 4 PM. Unfortunately, we arrived late and had to search across various places for food, only to find something available at this restaurant on North Cliff.

Location and Ambience: The location is a major advantage. Situated at the popular North Cliff of Varkala, it offers beautiful sunset views, making it a nice place to unwind. However, our experience with the food and service left much to be desired.

Food Quality: We tried both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. While the vegetarian food was average, the non-vegetarian dishes were disappointing. The fish we ordered, which cost ₹800, was undercooked. When we asked them to properly cook it, they refused, stating that since we had already eaten a portion, they couldn’t make changes. This was frustrating and unacceptable.

Service and Staff Behavior: The staff’s attitude was another major letdown. They were dismissive and unresponsive to our concerns, behaving as if they were doing us a favor. Basic customer service and courtesy seemed lacking, which dampened the dining experience further.

Parking Issues: Another unpleasant incident involved our scooty parking. We parked near the restaurant, only to discover upon returning that it was private property. We were charged a fee for each scooty, which came as an unwelcome surprise. This should have been communicated upfront so we could have explored other parking options.

Drink Prices: We also found the drink prices unreasonably high. A single can of beer was priced at ₹350, and other drinks were marked up to nearly three times their usual price. This made us feel overcharged and added to the overall dissatisfaction.

Overall Experience: While the location and sunset view were definite highlights, the poor food quality, unfriendly staff, unexpected parking fees, and exorbitant drink prices left us disappointed. With better food and service, this place could leverage its great location to offer a memorable experience, but as it stands, it...

Although the stars given above may give an adequate picture of how I rate the restaurant, I would say that food quality was reasonable, less to do with cost, but more to do with the availability of vegetarian food in the area. I mentioned 'reasonable' because we had a mixed experience with the dishes we ordered (aloo Paratha, veg burger and a frappe for breakfast, and Chapati with gravy paneer and some other supportive side dishes for dinner), as some of them were really good (aloo Paratha and frappe) and the others not so. However, the food 'seemed' to be hygienic enough.

On the service frontier, the wait time was quite a lot for all of the above dishes, especially in the evening for dinner, when on that Saturday, as usual though it may be there at weekends, the restaurant was so densely crowded with customers (some of them even just standing at their place for no reason, and others in their weekend mood, ready to explode to the wildness of the DJ lights and sound in the restaurant) that not only it seemed chaotic but also, the waiters also were not able to even decide which table to attend or which one actually needs to be attended. Thankfully, some of them, whom we could identify from our morning breakfast, were attentive enough to attend to our table, though no time soon.

The atmosphere, as we realised, was not very suitable for a fine dining experience, however for party lovers and friends'- night-out-diners, it may just be what they want. The area that the restaurant has at its discretion is quite spacious, for any other restaurant in the area.

It is sufficient not only for supporting these DJ nights at weekends, but even on other days and times to accommodate numerous customers at the same time when it is not...

We visited Darjeeling Cafe on a rainy night. The infrastructure was not capable of handling the rains, with water seeping through the roof at multiple points. Initially, our waiter told us we had to sit at our original table despite the water seeping down on us. We had to find ourselves a table, collect our own food and drinks and relocate. Great service. The highlight of our evening was the Pita Bread and Hummus dish (seen in the photo). Fresh off the grill/tandoor with some charcoal stuffed inside the bread. We did not notice at first and ate about half of the pita. After finally successfully conveying (because I had a hard time explaining to them what coal/charcoal is) to the people at the counter, all they said was they will cancel and replace it. There was no apology, no remorse, nothing of the sort. Only a dismissive “We will replace or cancel it”. Upon explaining how we ate traces of charcoal because of this, one of the people retorted “Come. I’ll take you to the hospital.” Again, great service. At one point, they also said they would send the manager to our table simply to shoo us away. We later found there was no manager present. Our incredible waiter was quick to rudely tell us this, along with a “Don’t tell me. I can’t do anything”. Great service yet again. We finally happened to notice a man speaking in Malayalam. He was at least calm and apologetic. We had no choice but to settle for them just cancelling the one item. It’s a pity that one star is the lowest I can give. Hoping at least 1 person is saved from a terrible...