KEP — Restaurant in Rawai

If you have kids or a baby and want to sit on the ocean without second hand smoke blowing in your face, don’t come here!!!! The whole row of tables ONLY on the ocean are all “the smoking section”. We come here often, we have dealt with this issue before and understand the smoking section is busy at lunch or the evening. But, the last 2 times we came here for breakfast-brunch, we were the first to arrive & first to sit at the ocean front tables, we asked the wait staff if any smoker parties arrive, please sit them a couple tables away bc we have a baby/toddler and we wanted a smoke free brunch with the family. The waiter agreed. After we ordered our food, less than 10 minutes later the SAME waiter put a big group of cigarette smokers at the table directly next to ours, when there were all the other ocean front tables to choose from! This is the 2nd time this happened at this restaurant. Terrible service from wait staff. We were surprised it happened twice to repeat customers of KEP who live here. We bring business colleagues & friends who visit Phuket here & come for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Today is probably the last time we will come here. The food is not worth what they’re charging but you’re paying for the view. There are many other restaurants with a beautiful view that don’t allow smoking.

Suggestion to the management of KEP. It’s 2025 you need to have a non smoking section on the ocean front tables, especially in the mornings for people who don’t like it. At least, train your wait staff to do what they say they will do for the...

The place is beautiful, albeit a bit tired. Like many post covid places, everything looks a little shabby. Thank goodness for the ocean view. 😉

The food is okay, but .. I can sense some chaos in the kitchen. Things are not polished and the plates do not look like the menu.

The service is pedestrian, at best. Servers are openly frustrated with customers. They appear to be seriously understaffed.

The kitchen brought fried rice instead of steamed rice. After waiting an hour for my penne pesto, they informed me they were waiting for me to finish my appetizer. 😂 I had not taken a bite of my appetizer in 40 minutes. I canceled the pasta. More training is definitely needed.

The cost for one meal, two beers, one water, and an appetizer was 1107.00 baht. Very reasonable.

Here's the strange thing .. the waiter informed us, after taking our order and delivering drinks to everyone, that we would have to pay 1000 baht in cash to him as a deposit on our meal. It was strange.

I believe they just had a 1000 baht minimum because of the event, but we're afraid of just adding to the bill? They communicated this terribly.

This is another example of an amazing venue with amazing potential and sub-par execution.

Finally, nothing really stood out on the menu. I don't know what kind of restaurants are trying to be. They seem to...

We visited it as a group of 20. The location itself is super nice and clean. But for their kitchen planning they could improve a bit. My appetizer, fried squid, arrived the same time with my main dish and most of the others already finished their main and started with the deserts, even though there were others who ordered the same dish than me. The fried squid was very tasty, not like rubber and with a thin coating and a very tasty homemade sauce. As main dish I had ravioli and I guess, if they wouldn't have to keep it warm until I finished my appetizer, it would be more delicious as the ravioli became a bit dry meanwhile. After the meal I had a cappuccino and Maphrang tarte. Both very delicious. The portion of the appetizer was ok, but the main dish will not make you feel full when you are really hungry. To choose your menu, you will get a tablet and sadly it doesn't show anywhere that all prices are net and the surprise coming with the bill, because VAT and service charge will be added. I will come back for sure just to relax with a dessert...