Artcaffé Restaurant Garden City Mall — Restaurant in Nairobi

Disappointing Experience at Artcaffe – Garden City Branch

I visited the Garden City branch of Artcaffe today with my daughters for the second time, and unfortunately, we were once again disappointed.

We ordered the vegetarian noodles and specifically requested no spice. The dish arrived very spicy, with an overwhelming amount of vegetables and barely any noodles. The ratio felt off, and the spicy sauce made it completely inedible for my daughter. When I shared this with the waitress, her response was simply: “Sorry, the kitchen uses a spicy sauce.” I was left wondering—why not let the customer decide if they’re still interested in the dish, especially when a no-spice request was clearly made?

The second dish, mushroom pasta in a cream sauce, was overall okay—but seriously under-seasoned and needed a lot more salt.

I personally was looking for the quinoa and hummus bowl, which I had enjoyed in the past, but was disappointed to find it no longer available. I ended up ordering the halloumi salad. The waitress later came to say they were out of halloumi, and I struggled to find a vegetarian salad alternative. I agreed to have the salad without the cheese, though I find it strange that if a key ingredient is missing, there’s no effort to get it—even from a nearby supermarket—especially during operating hours.

The salad itself had an odd balance: lots of roasted butternut, peppers, and unappetizing roasted eggplant. To make things worse, it contained whole black peppercorns, which made eating it unpleasant.

Finally, I was surprised to be charged the full halloumi salad price, despite not receiving the halloumi. This was not communicated in advance. When I asked the waitress if the manager was around, she said yes—and that left me wondering: if this is the level of service with a manager present, what happens when they’re not?

I would truly appreciate...

1st time to any of your branches and it's safe to say I will not be bothered to visit another one. Your staff are lacking in customer service. I was in a group of 6 nobody greets us from the entrance yet there were 4 of them in a corner chatting.. We find our seats n one comes over with the menus and proceeds to just throw them around in front of us no hello no nothing n walks away.. Not to mention your menu is severely over priced.. I mean 800sh for a sandwich?? Lol.. Then we call one of your waiters over to make an order n he proceeds to demand we pay first and only in cash.. And when someone removed the money.. He goes.. You don't have anything smaller than this?? To which a few in the group laughed.. N the rest have just had enough of the place.. . Then he realises his lack of waiter etiquette.. If he had any even.. n proceeds to explain that he is asking for cash upfront Coz their machine is down.. Needless to say we did not eat there. Some guys ordered their 450sh...

This is an updated review now. Generally, I love Artcaffe, and that's not changing anytime soon, but my experience today was mid at best. The server seemed to have woken up the wrong side of the bed, and fair enough people do have bad days, but this was something else. The burgers were nice. However, I noticed there was rice in the salt shakes, which is harmless. I'm cool with that, but the salt shakers had rust/iron oxide. It could just be paprika. Maybe I made a mistake that it didn't seem safe at all. I took videos as well, but yeah.the server did come back to ask if we had paid too and then disappeared off again. Yes, she didn't seem too happy with us, but hey, as i said. I could be wrong. Maybe just a bad day. This didn't feel like the artcaffe experience I'm used to, so hey, maybe next time I swing by, it'll be better. I still love the...