Cotton Tree Eatery & Bar — Restaurant in Nairobi

We went in a group of 7 girls for one of our girls birthday on 16th Sept 2025. The outdoor seating area was awesome with good intricate designs on the outdoor patio made of bamboo posts tied with ropes and nature like lamps. Oh the sight, I was intrigued. We sat beside 2 giant cotton trees and the table setup was beautiful with sisal table mats, green table clothes and silver cutlery. The center piece was a vase of pampas grass and dried flowers, a gold serviette holder and wooden color salt and pepper shakers which brought everything together greatly. The trees and the tent made us not feel how hot the sun was instead the breeze made it a cool temperature for us to enjoy. The food was from the vietnamese culture and I ordered a drink and a meal. My meal was a bowl of noodles and beef cooked in red wine but the soup😂😂utashiba tu. It also came with chilli sauce on the side with garlic and chilli soaked in Vinegar.It was hot like a heater😂😂 My drink was cotton treezy mocktail made up of tamarind, pineapple juice and cranberry. The tamarind brought out a predominantly tangy sour taste to the drink plus the cranberry color and the sweetness of the pineapple juice. The mocktail tasted as good as it looked. Amazing presentation. Our server Grace Njoki was polite, attentive and knowledgeable. She provided all of us excellent customer service by efficiently taking orders, communicated to each one of us clearly while maintaining a positive, professional demeanor no matter how loud we were. She multitasked given that there were 7 of us and got each of our food and drink orders correctly. I truly appreciated her service as she created a pleasant and memorable dining experience to the 7 of us. She also organized a piece of cheesecake for the birthday girl and well what a pleasant surprise 🫢 🎉 . My experience was divine. Will come...

We had high hopes for our visit to Cotton Tree, but unfortunately, our experience was incredibly disappointing. It felt as if the staff assumed we didn’t belong there simply because of our skin color. The disrespect was palpable, and it made us feel unwelcome right from the start.

Upon arrival, the manager informed us that we could only stay for an hour since we didn't have a reservation, despite the many empty tables around us. We assured them it was fine and even offered to move to the bar if someone else came who had reserved the table. After that, we settled in and waited to place our orders.

When our server finally arrived, she seemed annoyed to take our order, as if we were asking for a favor. I later apologized and asked if I could change my order from water to a Dawa. I even reassured her that I was perfectly fine with the water if it was too much trouble. We patiently waited for her to return and take our food order, but no one came back to check on us, ask how our meal was, or offer us the bill.

Eventually, we got up to pay, only to find that our server hadn’t even shown us the receipt. Instead, she simply entered the amount on the card machine. When we looked closely, we noticed that the water I had canceled was still on the bill. Her explanation? She “forgot to remove it.”

The whole experience left us feeling incredibly unwelcome, and we couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being treated differently. It’s disheartening because we genuinely liked the restaurant and had hoped to return for date nights. However, after this experience, it was clear that this would be our first...

We did not have the best time here.

On service, our waiter tried hard to navigate the albeit busy time at the restaurant. However, the downside is there was little to no communication regarding the dalay (the occasional, it will be here in 10 minutes was disheartening)

On food, our food took a considerable amount of time (3 hours) to arrive and I do give them leeway as they had just opened and we were a huge group. However, we had pre-ordered and pre-paid a day in advance, therefore a 3 hour delay felt very long.

As for the actual dish, it was not what was described. My meal was described as: Stir-fried Vermicelli with chicken mushroom, carrot, garlic, spinach, onion, capsicum, glass noodle. I ended up with noodles and capsicum on my plate and after having waited 3 hours; did not feel the need to bring it up. This felt cheap as it was a vegetarian dish and there were corners cut.

The atmosphere was amazing but everything else fell short. I wish to give them grace as they are a new establishment. Might give it another go in a few...