Giraffe, W8 5NP
- 020 7938 1221
- 7 Kensington High Street, W8 5NP (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
- giraffe.net/classic/lo...
- 8am-11pm Mon-Fri; 9am-11pm Sat; 9am-10:30pm Sun and Bank Holidays
Chain restaurant in Kensington.
John et al. visited on a Saturday lunchtime in November 2012. We arrived at about noon and there was no queue, so we were seated immediately. We visited again on a Saturday evening in November 2013, between 6:30pm and 8:15pm. Again, there was no queue (unlike the Victoria branch), and about half of the tables were empty.
The staff were all very friendly. When someone knocked over a drink by accident, they rushed over to clean it up, and replaced it with a new one free of charge without even being asked.
There are a few vegetarian options on the menu, including the "veggie brunch" (served until 4pm). That's basically a fried breakfast, but it also includes aubergine which you don't normally get at a greasy spoon cafe.
They have free wireless, supplied by The Cloud, so you need to register an account to use it. There aren't any prominent announcements about this in the restaurant so just scan for local networks.
Child-friendliness: This is a very child-friendly restaurant. On our November 2012 visit (with a 5 year old), the staff immediately brought over a set of crayons and an activity sheet before they even mentioned orders. There's a children's menu, and the child's food came first: that's useful because children normally eat more slowly than adults (and find it harder to wait when they're hungry). The child's drink came with a plastic giraffe, and the restaurant offered a helium balloon to take away at the end of the meal. There's a baby changing facility on the ground floor. On our November 2013 visit (with a 4 year old and a 6 year old) we phoned ahead to reserve a table: they asked on the phone about the number of children and whether we needed high chairs, then set aside a booth for us which already had activity sheets and crayons laid out when we arrived.
Accessibility: Step free access to the front half of the restaurant, then a couple of steps to get up to the bar and the back half. Toilets are downstairs, and there's a bit of a maze to get to the male toilets.