Gusto Cafe — Restaurant in George Town

May 5th, 2024 our 45 minute visit was between 1354 and 1439

Ambience: This shop had what was essentially a prime location in Penang's Hillside district. There’s some street parking that’s available, but not designated so plan on street parking. The space is open and modern, downstairs (future shop location next door) there’s a splendid garden with various fruit trees, some orchids, ficus and a really unique looking variegated caladium, as well as tons of seating options that were plant free, and some closed off space that contained a cool coffee bean roaster— so the atmosphere is pretty chill. A coffee lovers paradise we thought. At the time of our visit, the space had an upstairs coffee bar with sitting and eating areas. It was our understanding from the owners that they were planning on moving to their downstairs (next door) garden and live music stage areas.

Menu: There was a basic coffee and tea menu, with the standards from Americano to Espresso, as well as some food items and a few fresh made dessert offerings. We ordered a hot Vietnamese coffee and an iced Masala chai tea. We also tried an apple-rhubarb crumble pie.

Coffee and food: The items arrived pretty quickly. The pie presented well, and was served in a bowl, the coffee though left a little to be desired, as it came out and sloppily spilt all over the saucer and stained the mug. It also came out with 2 spoons and a side of simple syrup??!? The masala came out in a cocktail glass, which was acceptable. They both tasted, meh. The Vietnamese coffee was overly sweet, with an imbalance of condensed milk. Not only was it over filled, with the condensed milk at the bottom, which caused even more coffee to spill on the saucer, but the beans tasted burnt, way over processed! I hope they didn’t roast them… the Masala chai was under sweetened and bland tasting (thank god for the simple syrup). The crumble pie was nice, crumbly, and well balanced, obviously the star of the show!

Conclusion: Overall just an ok coffee experience, with a really nice atmosphere. Could have been much better, but we’ll give them a second try— hope to have a better overall experience...

I really wanted to like this place because I’ve been convincing my husband for a while to try Gusto due to the positive reviews online but unfortunately my experience wasn’t great and in the end I had to admit he was right.

The ambience wasn’t very comfortable, there was no air con, and the baby chair was very dirty like it hasn’t been sat on for years. We ended up holding our baby the entire time while we ate.

We went for breakfast on a weekday morning and there weren’t many options. He ordered a toasted bagel with egg and cheese, I had a Spaniard and a flat white, which was a baguette with egg, garlic, pesto, tomato, lettuce. The food didn’t look appetizing when it arrived, and sadly it didn’t taste any better than it looked.

Coffee was okay as were the staff behind the counter. Price was reasonable if the quality was better, but we definitely won’t be returning. As a suggestion, staff should ask the customer how they would like their eggs or specify on the menu to avoid any disappointment. My husband was expecting scrambled eggs and instead he got a sunny side up on top of a slice of processed cheese. He couldn’t complain because he got exactly what he ordered, but it just wasn’t what we...

5star for food. 3 stars for everything else. Placed that dine by 90% whites. Place is not that huge. Dinner(the steak serving timing) is 6pm onward. Owner start cooking around 6:15ish. Cheapest price of steak you can find in restaurant-ish at the area. It's not any other steak you ever had trust me. It's very very welled seasoned,smell and taste filled with aroma / flavour. But why 3 star? Let me explain. First of all, the serving was very small, as if kids meal. You would need least 3 serving of steak for grown adult to be fully satisfied for belly. And 2nd of all, I don't really like the way the owner plan and serve the steak, example if there are 30 customers, the owner would prepared all of it at once. When the steak starts to be done, they don't serve immediately, they lay the steak in the plates they lined up on the table, when all the 30steaks are completely cooked, they then start serving the food, I waited for close to 45mins, by the time I got mine, it was as cold as ice. But hey! It was delicious. It's not you get what you paid for meal. It's totally worth it. But take my opinion and order least 2 serving of steak. And to the owner, please serve the steak HOT...