Scarlett's Café Pantai Indah Kapuk — Restaurant in Jakarta

Being an amateur homebaker myself, I have a quite high standard when it comes to cakes and desserts. It breaks my heart to give a bad review for any place but I'm going to be brutally honest about this new cake shop. This review is purely objective based on my visit yesterday. There will be several aspects that I will assess:

Taste wise. I felt like the flavor was nothing outstanding. It's pretty one dimensional because of the overwhelmingly sweet taste. Sadly, this happened to everything that I ordered (cake, tartlet, and fatcaron). I appreciate them for trying to be bold in combining different strong flavors but unfortunately some of them either did not go well together or did not combine harmoniously.

Texture wise. I didn't find the texture of the sweets that I ordered perfect. They didn't hit all the important notes of what constructed the basic elements of each dessert: the shell of the tartlet was very dry, the sponge of the cake was also not as fluffy as I expected it to be, and the fatcaron's shell was also crispy in a waxy way.

Hygiene wise. I have to say that the store's hygine was pretty questionable and this one actually concerned me the most. Spotted several flies flying around inside the store and throughout my visit, none of the shop attendants tried to deal with it (picture attached). And also, looking at the bakers not wearing gloves when touching the doughs in such condition gave me a little bit of hygiene issue (CMIIW, but doughs are very sensitive to heat transferring from the palm of your hands and also in the middle of a pandemic, I guess wearing gloves should be a standard operating procedure, no?)

Product knowledge wise. The shop attendants need to elevate their product knowledge. As a shop that offers different types of cakes and desserts, it's very normal to expect that average reasonable person wouldn't know these different types of sweets. Hence, a strong product knowledge from the shop attendants is an important thing to have. However, when I intentionally asked one of the shop attendants who took my orders about the difference between gateau and cake that they're selling, the answer was very simplistic and misleading.

Inventory wise. For a shop that has been running over a month, inventory problems shouldn't happen anymore. They should've been able to anticipate the overwhelming orders made by the customers. However, when I went there, after I made my orders, paid for them and waited for them to be boxed, they told me that one of the cakes was out of stock. This inventory problem could've been prevented if they didn't just allow everyone that ordered for takeouts to enter the shop straight away. (When I went there, only those who were queueing to dine in waited outside. For takeouts, everyone could enter the shop straight away. Making the store overly crowded)

Price wise. The problems above become even more significant when we add price to the calculation. Their pricepoints are on the higher side. However, for such pricepoints, it's just not worth the money. There are many other cake shops selling better quality cakes or even with bigger portion within the same price range. Not to mention, other cake shops within the same price range also tend to have luxurious and more comfortable dining in area. So it's just bizarre to me that they're selling their products within such high price range given all the problems above.

So why I gave them 2 stars? I still have to give them credits for two things. First of all, their products are very aesthetic. So attractive and appealing to the eyes. Definitely one of the most well decorated cakes in the market. Very nice for social media posts. Secondly, they have wide variety of products. That in itself is not easy - to offer such variety of products in one store is something I have to give them credit for.

So, with all the things mentioned above, I wouldn't make a conscious decision to comeback here in the near future. I hope they'll improve thou. Maybe I'll try again later. But for now, wouldn't recommend...

Horrible service standard.

These people seriously don't know what hospitality means. So, me and my friend went to this cafe yesterday afternoon and it was rather crowded. Funny how it should, but I'm guessing not for long if they keep their service personality as the way it is.

So here's the story: As we entered, there were 2 empty tables available, there was no one keeping the door or to greet us so we thought we could sit wherever. Then, a waiter with uniform told us that we have to be in the waiting list to sit and said he would fetch the said list. We then queued with other customers in front of us till this young lady approached us and asked what we would like to order and if we want to takeaway or dine inside. We stated that we would like to dine inside. Never been approached by the waiter who said would fetch the list for us. Then the young lady said that we have to be in the list first and pointed us to the waiter who is now standing guarding the front door. At that point, I was really confused, then can't you HELP put our name in the list? The waiter was standing only meters away from where we stood and the young lady insisted we had to do it by ourselves. How hospitable. We then asked the waiter how long is the list and notified that we would like to be in the list. The young lady understood and took our name, however the waiter DID NOT put it in his list. There was ZERO teamwork between the order taker and the waiter 😅😅😅😅😅 then the waiter had to LECTURE my friend about waiting list as if we don't know what a waiting list is or how it works. They completely misunderstood us, showed no hospitable attitude and had the audacity to lecture us!

It was utterly messed up. I don't know if they shouldn't have put such a young kid in food service position where you need to attend to needs or let such awful personality to wait tables. However, we did get our seats and had our cakes in the premise. I quite appreciate the effort put into the cake making details. Shame that it didn't extend to their hospitality knowledge. Loved the peach one, but the pistachio strawberry was meh. The overall experience of our visit couldn't help with the rating. Hoping they might improve in the future which I don't think is likely given how they treated us, here's a 1-star...

Been craving for a dessert session, and heard of Scarletts cafe that is famous for small cafe serving delightful cakes and fatcaroons. The cafe is small and quiet hard to notice because it's between two big restaurant, almost like being squeeze between. This is a type of korean aesthetic vintage cafe, small but suppose to be feel homey but because of the crowd it's not that comfortable anymore. Service is great, waiters response quick and fast as well. They offer to dine in our own vehicle which they will provide with steel tray. Seatings are limited, only about 5 tables inside, and two outside which is not an option as very hot in PIK 2. They limit our stay for an hour. Cake and pies is place on display which allow us to pick and order fast. Except for the tiramisu which need to be prepared in the kitchen and not on display. We ordered The tiramisu pour original (around IDR45k ish) , not too sweet, texture soggy in a good way, and very delicious. The coffee chocolate sauce complements it perfectly, no complain on this dessert. You can get a hint of bitterness and sweet perfectly on this tiramisu. The earl grey peach cake (IDR 65k), not my favorite, the peach taste fresh and a little bit sour, can't hardly taste the earl grey cause overwhelmed by the cream, texture wise okay, sponge soft and crumbling nicely. I like earl grey and kinda sad that I cant taste it from this cake. Smoke salmon scones (IDR 40K ish), the smoked salmon is great, the sauce complement it is also delicious, never try a scone before so I don't know if this one great, but it's like a very dense and solid bread , very compact and heavy. Easy to bite though. Iced coffee (IDR 28K ish) , served in an aluminum can, coffee taste light, it's okay for a coffee Tamarid drink something (IDR 38K) , refreshing, sour sweet, it's okay Overall my experience here in scarlet is delightful, but it's very crowded and the seating on the window during noon is very hot. I wouldn't come back in a near time, at least until the hype subside. Quiet expensive for the cake, including tax and service charges, I spend...