Este Kitchen

its now an Asian cafe [changed hands] the front of house staff seem pretty clueless about most things and not at all friendly, they even try to do the cooking sometimes when chef is off. new owner seems reluctant to spend any money on anything, we get the overwhelming impression the place just his personal cash cow They've introduced a samosa and coffee special, the samosa presumable to replace the cakes, which now seem to be either absent or a few days old. there's even a couple of Asian trinkets around and the place has started taking on an Indian restaurant flavor The place seems to be a shambles, too bad as we both normally like Indian food so much. the atmosphere used to be so warm and friendly and the food was really good ....now !? ---------------- update: popped in for a coffee the other day coming back from work [the cafe used to be so good for this when it was friendly and well run] ...nothing seems to have changed since my last very disappointing visit, service is still terrible and most of the staff have zero personality, bordering on unfriendly. The old chef was a definite asset and made everyone feel at home:) but he didn't seem to be on duty today. Opinion is that he'll only be kept on till they've learnt from him how to run a cafe and cook a Colombian dish or two ...or its more likely that he will leave of his own accord The owner responded to this review accusing me of being the "R word" and saying he was reporting me to the police ...its seems that goggle has picked up on the "R word" and deleted the response, as it seems to have disappeared LOL ------------------- update: we had to visit again to meet a colleague [cringe] they've been running the place for a while now [running into the ground:]. exactly the same problems, same clueless staff, were convinced the samosas are from Asda's cheap range, they are truly disgusting when you eventually get one, and the coffee has been cheapened. one of us had eggs which appearing to have been abused and somehow put back together, albeit unpleasantly hard. like everything else it took forever to arrive by which time our meeting was well over and i was apologizing to my guest about the food we still know one person who goes there but only because they are partly disabled so we keep in touch with the cafe's rapid decline. Even the homeless guy who use to get a free coffee there every day is gone ..hasn't been spotted for ages Other people commenting here are quite correct in saying the place is grubby, in fact my partners eagle eye detected what she called disgusting filth ...but hey, if these guys are so busy that food takes forty mins to arrive how are are they going find time to clean the place. The plastic tables cloths they put down were a good idea though, they completely covered the horribly sticky tables which were due to be replaced. hardly any people there on Sundays now, not even the dogs :) although animals are never allowed in Indian restaurants. But pop down to No.12 [cafe] for a damn good Sunday lunch but its very busy [in a good way] and we discovered the original chef has was told to move on after showing the clueless front of house staff how to cook ...lol It's been noticed that a couple of online reviews rate Este very highly ....these are years old [and still left up :( ]

Really enjoyed my first time in Este Cafe - I wanted to visit because I had heard about the Latin American menu and it's not super common in Bristol to find food like this. Staff were friendly and the Colombian Hot Chocolate was amazing, super chocolatey. It was so busy but I can see why!

Visited by chance. We tried the all-day breakfast sandwich - had the bacon which was greasy, over cooked and merely tucked between two rather dry slices of bread. My partner had the egg - simply dumped onto a slice of bread with no other filling. Had to wait 40 minutes for this - surely it should take just minutes to place a piece of beacon/egg onto a piece of bread? Our friend had a hot chocolate. He said it was good but, hang-on, a 45 minute wait for a hot drink is not good. And no mention of a sorry from the waitresses nor any attempt of dialogue other than taking our order and payment. The service felt cold and reticent. Whilst our coffee's came warm rather than pipping hot. Just about drinkable at a pinch. The only good part, other than the hot chocolate was the carrot cake. Had taste and was nice and moist as carrot cake should be. But, overall not a good experience.