Cafe AMKA

June 6, 2024

Amka cafe is a very vibrant cafe located at Delta towers westlands. What I wasn’t expecting was walking through a gym to get to it lol. So is it part of the gym? They’re just sharing a floor? It’s very confusing.

Anyway… once you get past the gym part - you walk into the cafe which has both an indoor and patio section. I like the dark colour scheme they have going on with the pops of colour from the yellow cushion and the bright wood tables and chairs.

They have a nice simple menu with plenty of healthy options (I guess they are aligned to the gym after all) and I like that they have a Build Your Own Smoothie option👌🏾

I got the breakfast tartine which is similar to the breakfast croissant (KSH950) and a latte (KSH280) while my friends had the octopus soup (KSH700), and the Chicken Katsu sandwich (KSH1140)

That breakfast croissant was perfect! Such a nice big size, and so much bacon! It comes with spinach, mushrooms and cheese and it’s such a decadent way to start the day😋 I love a good hearty breakfast croissant. The latte however, came in a very cute cup but was such a small amount of coffee, I felt robbed of the amount of coffee I should have had.

I did not have the octopus soup but my friend said it was way too salty and the Chicken Katsu sandwich was good, just found it too small for that price.

As we were there for most of the day, I opted to have dessert later. Tell me why NOTHING on their dessert menu was available?? No cheesecake, no brownies, no sticky toffee pudding… Our server told me they don’t stock any of that anymore, so… why are they still on the menul?

Anyway since they do have a baked goods section in the cafe, I went to pick something from there - white forest cake and also got a pot of their specialty tea - Rich Pu’er (KSH300). The White Forest was meh, not moist, and didn’t look fresh at all. The tea was good but not as rich as explained with the notes, still a good cup of tea nonetheless. The kettle thing is cool where the tea is constantly heated with the tea candle underneath. I’m a tea person, these things excite me😄

The ambience of the place was okay until it all of a sudden got filled with men and I was really confused - why were so many men hanging around in a cafe?? Then the TV volume got louder and everything made sense - they were here to watch a game. Also very random for a cafe to be the place to come watch football but stranger things have happened in this Nairobi.

It got quite loud with every goal, our little Bookclub meeting was drowned out by all that noise… so I’d suggest checking the premier league schedule before you go there for brunch or lunch on a Sunday afternoon.

Despite me loving that breakfast croissant so much, would I come back here? I don’t think so. Unless I absolutely have to but it wouldn’t be my first thought if I’m asked to recommend somewhere. Maybe I need to go try it when there’s not too much going on, like a weekday afternoon.

It’s a great place for breakfast dates though, for those early birds looking for a nice and healthy place to get a meal, makes for a good working space too if you don’t mind the gym in the background.