Kalamata

August 6, 2025

Kalamata (named after the Greek Kalamata olive) is one of Nairobi’s go-to spots for alfresco dining. It’s located in Lavington and is also another well outfitted establishment. They have both indoor and outdoor sitting with pockets of cozy corners for a casual setting and more intimate table settings indoors for a more formal vibe.

Their menu is summarized into two sheets, one for food and the other for drinks (I hope other restaurants are taking notes, we don’t need to be reading entire booklets as a menu please). I’d call their cuisine continental with a focus on Mediterranean style dishes.

I’ve been here twice, once for lunch with a friend and another time for brunch with my bookclub babes (yes they have a separate brunch menu). On my 1st visit, we opted to try a few things. For starters we had fried chicken with lemon aioli (KSH600) and corn ribs with sriracha butter (KSH630). For mains we had the pork spare ribs which comes with apple slaw and fries (KSH1450) and the za’atar chicken burger which also comes with fries (KSH1500). I had a berry mocktail to drink, can’t recall the name but it was very tasty!

The fried chicken starter you guys… I still dream about it to this day, they were amazing! It’s basically small chunks of chicken fried in their signature batter, making it super crunchy yet leaving the chicken inside it very moist and that lemon aioli dip made such a great accompaniment. I think I had two bowls of these, it’s so easy to eat so many! The corn ribs were just okay. I still believe Beit è Selam has the best corn ribs, now that everyone seems to have them on their menu, I’ve tried quite a bunch but no one’s come close yet.

The chicken burger to me was just okay, it was tasty but nothing spectacular. It’s actually quite hard to make a spectacular chicken burger. I added some chilli for an extra kick of spice and I actually really enjoyed the coleslaw it came with, very delicious.

The spare ribs were immaculate! Presentation, taste, flavour - so good! I like that the portion is a good size and the ribs are fleshy and not just bone. The addition of sesame seeds and nuts gave it a good crunch and the maple glaze was perfect for the sweet tooth in me. The slaw that came with this dish was more spicy than the burger one so loved that too - this was a great dish.

For dessert we tried the apple crumble with vanilla ice cream (KSH850) and the profiteroles (KSH800). The apple crumble was 10/10! So moist, so warm it just melts in your mouth and pairs so well with the 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream. The profiteroles were good but it was way too much pastry for me. These are quite a large version of profiteroles, they usually come in a much smaller size so the size is also quite overwhelming.

The service on this day was great, nothing was delayed and I had zero complaints. Fast-forward to my 2nd visit now when I came here for brunch…

I had made a reservation because we were a large group and we managed to get a table outside. They have brunch on weekends and public holidays from 10am - 2pm. Personally I feel like brunch should be an all day thing on weekends but that’s just me…

I like that the brunch menu has actual breakfast food and not just lunch/dinner items, they understand the concept of brunch. Here’s what we had - pancakes with spiced pineapple and maple glazed bacon (KSH1250), the kalamata Benedict with fried chicken and maple bacon (KSH1850), crumbed Camembert with jam and rocket (KSH750), the same fried chicken starter as last time, sirloin steak (KSH2150) the same spare ribs dish and the chicken schnitzel (KSH1650).

I have to say that on this day - the service was EXTREMELY SLOW. Like it should not take an hour to make pancakes and bacon surely… Our server Chelsea told us that they were having some complications in the kitchen but that it was being sorted asap. We waited way too long for any of the dishes, the only thing that came out on time was the fried chicken, and the Camembert dish.

When the pancakes finally came, the plate had very little bacon (for that price??). I told them they need to add more bacon surely, they agreed but it was at an added cost and would not be ‘maple glazed’ just kawaida fried bacon lol… told them that’s fine, bacon is bacon. The pancakes were very nice and fluffy but they only put a drizzle of maple syrup and there was none on the side provided. I know maple syrup is pricey but those 5 drops were doing nothing for the dish esp with pancakes that large? You need to give the customer at least a little container of syrup on the side and then if I need more than that, that’s where you can charge for extra.

The spiced pineapples were a nice touch (they had just started the brunch menu when we went so I think they need to rework this dish, maybe they could add some whipped cream/powdered sugar and sprinkle some berries).

The fried Camembert with rocket salad was really good! I don’t even like Camembert like that but this dish was really tasty, the rocket leaves add a nice tang to the sharpness of the Camembert and that jam just rounds it off well. The eggs Benedict dish was also great, and was a good big portion.

The sirloin was not good at all. It was quite undercooked and lacking in flavour. The fries were overfried and quite hard. The ribs dish did not look like the ones I had the first time… the slaw wasn’t made well, it tasted of so much mayo… I don’t know how things went so wrong that day. Everything I had praised so much from my previous visit was really lacking this time including the very slow service.

Ken the manager did some good service recovery by not charging for our starters and giving us gelato on the house. It eased us a bit but didn’t take away from the meh experience my friends had as their first visit which is unfortunate because it looks like we may not go back (no matter how much I miss that chicken popcorn).

I’ve heard complaints about this place from other people too, especially in regards to service, I do hope they’ve improved by now. It’s a great place for happy hour on Fridays, date nights, and celebratory gatherings like birthdays etc. I think they need to get their food on a standard level so it’s not wavering in taste and flavour because the aesthetics may be great but people only come back for the food & the service, not for the looks.