Review: Kooks Cafe, Brighton

I had some more visitors at the weekend - My best friends M&N came down on Sunday, it was the first time I had seen them in about 6 months and I couldn't wait to see them.

It was Pride in Brighton this weekend, which meant that the entire city was full of people. With that in mind, we decided to try and avoid the throngs and go out during the day for lunch, and then get a takeaway later in the evening.

We went for a stroll around the lanes, did a bit of shopping, and then went on a hunt for somewhere new for a brunch/light lunch before taking a quick (but windy!) walk along the seafront.

So, for lunch we ended up at KOOKS, situated in the North Lanes.

I had never been in this café before, but from walking by several times it always seemed busy, and the menu looked really good, if slightly expensive.

The menu boasted really simply prepared and cooked ingredients, so looked like it would be a good place.

Unfortunately, there was one thing that ruined our visit - the service.

I was surprised when we arrived, the café was nowhere near completely full, but many of the tables hadn't been cleared, and so we had to ask the very flustered looking waitres to clear the table before we sat down. To be honest, that should have been our first clue.

The second: the waitress was friendly and cleared the table straight away, but then disappeared before giving us any menus - quite a key thing for a group of people coming for lunch! And so we waited for a few minutes before reminding her.

There was a family sitting at the table next to us also looking very flustered - it seems that they were having the same experience as us although they were already seated when we arrived.

The menu itself looked really appetising - a few simple brunch items such as crispy bacon ciabattas, poached eggs with hollandaise, or full English, and then some bigger plates such as burger and chips, salads and pasta dishes.

Both myself and N ordered the crispy bacon ciabatta, and M decided on the poached eggs with spinach and hollandaise. We also ordered drinks, but we had to later chase these up as the waitress had forgotten to add them to our order!

Long story short on this one - we waited for nearly an HOUR after ordering before the food actually arrived. I think that may have been the longest I have ever waited when eating out. If it wasn't for the fact that we would have struggled to find anywhere else that wasn't packed, we probably would have walked out.

Hoever, when the food did eventually arrive, it was good and well cooked and prepared.

Here is the baocn ciabatta:

Although the sandwich was good, the bacon was very crispy without being fatty or greasy, with crispy lettuce and seasoned tomato, I wouldn't necessarily say that it was worth an hour wait.

I could have easily made something just as good at home for a fraction of the price. Two bacon sandwiches, poached egg and spinach, two (very small) cups of tea and one (again small) iced coffee came to just under £30!!! Very expensive for what we got, and especially given that the service was so terrible.

Unfortunately the service, or lack of it in this instance really tarred our experience of this place, it would have been a much more pleasant afternoon if the staff were a bit more on-the-ball.

This experience does put me off visiting again, and it does explain why it was one of the few places in Brighton that wasn't rammed to bursting on Pride weekend!

One would hope that they were just having an off day!

In a nutshell, satisfactory but overpriced food and terrible service means that its not an experience I would like to repeat.