The Arthouse Cafe Bar — Restaurant in New Delhi

Five of us visited this place. Four of us arrived early and we told them we would place the order after the last person arrives but we anyway ordered 2 cappuccinos & 1 regular fries. They served us 2 cappuccinos while we were talking. Because we were trying to have a conversation within ourselves I asked them to turn the music down a bit to which the waiter said "It is already down." For me, red flag #1. I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt anyone to reduce the volume. While telling them this I asked them about the fries, more than 30 minutes after we had ordered them to which they said it is being made.

Maybe 30 minutes later, another waiter came and asked if we wanted something else, when I said we have already ordered the fries which aren't here. They asked me to whom we gave the order because it wasn't punched in their system. We didn't remember who it was so I just told them to place the order now. The fries were on our table in the next 15 minutes, I think. I later added another cappuccino too.

We were there close to 2.5 hours when they again asked if we wanted to order something. They were practically saying if we don't order we can't sit there, but not in so many words. Their reason being that since they are under surveillance, they are answerable to their bosses as to why someone is spending so much time without ordering (as much as they expected). So we said we will leave in 10 minutes which we did.

Throughout this time not only were we trying to have an uninterrupted, important conversation, the restaurant was occupied at a 50% or lesser capacity. When we left or when they kinda asked us to leave there were 2 or 3 other tables occupied by 4-5 others.

While leaving we clearly let them know that we won't be visiting ever again. When we explicitly asked them what was their expectation in terms of how much should our bill have been since we spent close to 2.5 hours, they said something like 2,000 would have been ok. We left by saying that they should clearly display this on a board outside.

I'm surprised with the rating this place has but it probably only caters to a certain kind of...

Food and drink is good, but on the name of ambience and experience it's worse for an art cafe or and cafe. A single section was hijacked by a group of comedians on a first day of the week, a monday. Why I say hijacked, is because these comedians literally forced the customers to be their subjects of exploration. Bad jokes, and if you don't laugh they would comment about you on their loudspeaker. If you are talking to your fellow person you went there, you become again a topic for this comedians to assume you as a couple or a tinder date and follows their jokes on that. Even if you are paying the bill, they would comment on you over their loudspeaker as if I can't even have my decision when to pay, call me a feminist coz they see me paying the bill. they want you to laugh because they want the recordings to be put on their YouTube pages. To the owners : I understand you are trying to promote art but please understand the customers didn't sign up for this forced experiment on the name of entertainment. We chose a cafe and not a restaurant pub bar etc to have a peaceful talk within our friends. Give people their space. Just with a loud voice and a somehow built over confidence, comedians can never get respect this way...it needs to be earned. There were hardly four tables of max 7-8 people on a Monday, and 7 comedians...if their jokes can't draw attention among such less quantity of people ...they should think about their work than forcing audience to laugh. Give people their space! I thought these acts are done to attract or enhance the cafe experience but honestly, it was a nightmare. Though food and drinks were good...I will specifically call out not to waste your time incase you don't want fake...

Slow service and average food. Unattentive staff. Service must be faster when it comes to food. We had to wait 30 mins for our starters. Waiters were not attentive or prompt. We raised our hands and waved several times to order and ask for the status of the food but we were ignored a bunch of times. I understand if the waitress was new but she was not attentive or welcoming at all. She seemed like she didn't want to be there. She saw us raise our hands but she ignored us. Not cool. Both waiters started talking to another person who was not a customer when we were calling them from a table away. What is this kind of service?? After not getting our second starter and getting ignored repeatedly we were getting frustrated. We asked another waiter why was no one attending to us and why is a starter taking so long. The waiter said "pls talk politely". I'm sorry but if we were "politely" raising our hands for 10 mins straight and still got ignored do not expect your customers to speak politely to you. The service does not do justice to the beautiful decor you have. Food was alright but I expected better. The chicken in my basil pesto pasta was a little undercooked. Beautiful interiors though. Pls work on your service, I would love to come back if not for the snail-paced service and...