Kissa Wa Café — Restaurant in London

What looks like a nice cafe just turned into an unpleasant experience. Staff here don't speak fluent English, and need to be mindful of people with allergies or intolerances as it's quite dangerous.

I got served a Matcha latte with milk, when I asked for Soy. the waitress came back and she they didn't have any Soy milk, so I just told her to put 'any non-dairy milk ' in it.

When the drink came, I had one sip of the drink and felt sick. I asked the waiter if the milk in the drink was non-dairy milk, she said 'Yes'. I thought I was being gaslighted because I know the difference between milk, oat and non-dairy products.

I double-checked again if there was any dairy milk and this time she said 'Yes'. After asking 4 times, she confirmed the drink has diary milk. Even explaining I am lactose intolerant, she had no idea what that meant. She told me the drink couldn't be exchanged and that I needed to reorder and pay for another drink.

I repaid for another drink and reordered the drink. She charged me + 30p to add oat milk, even though she charged me 30p for soy last time and gave me milk.

This isn't a funny matter, if this was someone with allergies, someone could die. I'm only lactose intolerant so ended up needing to go toilet quickly after, but it made the rest of the day unpleasant with a belly ache.

If English is poor, the waitress needs to confirm the order back to the customer. Its a nice cafe and food, but if someone has allergies best to avoid this place as the waitress cant even clarify what milk is in your drink.

Please educate yourself as a...

Very cute place with an interesting menu, but the food itself was a little disappointing. Japanese food tends to be on the subtle side flavor wise (if you're not drowning your food in soya sauce like I've seen some people do 🫣) which is great but I think Kissa Wa went a little too subtle, into the bland side of things. We ordered a few onigiri, two lattes, a savoury loaf slice, and a curry rice. The portions are generous for a cafe, definitely enough for two hungry people. However like I said, most of the food was pretty bland, except for the savory veggie loaf which was by far the tastiest thing we ordered. The rice balls weren't seasoned much (neither the filling nor the rice) and the curry was probably least flavorful I've had to date. It was a lot of texture and bits which I was all for since it wS cooked nicely but you could barely taste the curry roux or flavor, and it was mostly just vague sauce. The lattes (one matcha and one genmaicha) were okay, good quality tea and good temperature but a little grainy.

We went on a Saturday around lunchtime on a sunny day so you know it had to be busy. We were seated pretty quickly which was great, sitting outdoors since we had dog with us (it's a dog...

Loved visiting Kissa Wa on a rainy Saturday afternoon! The shop is small and cozy off a back street near Highbury & Islington station. We were seated right away in a small table for two. Because of how they plate on trays, the table was a bit too small for everything we ordered 😅

We got the hojicha latte, genmaicha, hot soba noodles, and balanced bowl with mackerel. Everything came out very quickly!

The hojicha latte very subtle in flavor and not too sweet. I could drink so many cups of it!

The genmaicha was light and perfect for warmth on a cold day.

The hot soba noodles had a nice broth but not that many toppings. The eggplant was a nice touch but overall the dish was a bit too salty.

The balanced bowl with mackerel was the star of the meal! The mackerel with Mayo was so tasty with all of the other veggies, especially the beets. We loved how truly balanced the dish was and how everything was cooked to the perfect texture. The multi grain rice made us feel so healthy afterwards. It was so good that we were considering getting an onigiri with the mackerel.

We’ll definitely...