C Cafe: Meet Joo Chiat's Newest Spot for Brunch

Katong is a beautiful neighbourhood, and like several other quaint areas of Singapore, many cafes and coffeehouses have set up shop here. Katong boasts some established names like Penny University and Ninethirty by Awfully Chocolate, as well as some new cafes that have opened up in recent years such as Sinpopo Brand and Homeground Coffee Roasters.

Read: The Best Cafes in Singapore for Brunch

Read: 5 of the Most Insta-Worthy Cafes in Singapore for Brunch, Cakes and Coffee

If you’ve visited many of these and would like a new cafe to try, how about C Cafe?

C Cafe opened it’s doors just several weeks ago along Joo Chiat Rd, and is themed around magic and card tricks— reason being that co-founders Nicholas and Ashley are actually freelance magicians!

Read: An Interview with Magician-Turned Cafe Owners of C Cafe, Ashley and Nicholas

Unique? Quite.

The ‘C’ in C Cafe stands for cards, choices, and connections.

Upon entering the shophouse, you’re immediately greeted with a minimalistic interior— Think clean white walls with green accents, both in furnishing and with plants dotted around in addition.

Lovely.

Read: Simple Cafe 簡單。— Minimalist Taiwanese-Style Cakes and Pastries Cafe

As we were shown to our seats, we were given a short rundown of the origins of the cafe by our very friendly and eager waitress, who gave us recommendations on the menu, and offered us the chance to witness co-founder Nicholas (who was running the floor, mind!) do a quick magic trick with a deck of playing cards.

And indeed, several moments after, Nicholas came over and did just that!

Truth be told, I was blown away by how friendly and warm everyone we interacted with was, and it truly felt more like a family-run atmosphere than a bog standard cafe chain. Perhaps it was just the mix of staff that day, but it was a real winning combo.

On to the food.

The menu (themed like playing cards of course!), for now is limited to several brunch classics like a big breakfast, avocado toast, toasties, and salads. But they do also do desserts like açai bowls and greek yoghurt with granola.

We had the big breakfast, known as the Breakfast of Champions ($24) which was the most expensive item on the menu. The spread was scrumptious, with all the usual suspects you’d expect a big breakfast platter to have. Everything was done well, and the hash browns weren’t too oily.

Apart from that, we also had the Golden Waffle ($18) which was drizzled with maple syrup and french butter. The chicken thigh was tender and juicy to bite into, so top marks there.

Just like the menu selection, food here is pretty standard for any cafe in Singapore, but it’s done well. And judging by how packed the cafe was several weeks into operation, perhaps that was the right choice to start with.

However, it would be lovely if the menu could be revamped and expanded to include more of their own unique dishes and flavours. Either that, or a unique take on classic brunch favourites which they are currently serving. Maybe in the future, we’ll get to see that, as confirmed by co-founders Ashley and Nicholas.

We also had an iced matcha latte and iced coffee, which were lovely as well. I particularly enjoyed the iced matcha latte which wasn’t too sweet.

If you’re not a coffee or tea drinker, they do serve up freshly squeezed juices and smoothies too.

Prices on the menu are nett, and match expectations of a cafe around the area.

Some personal parting thoughts?

Well I have to once again commend the level of service here, which was unlike many other cafes. The norm has become rather impersonal albeit professional and efficient service. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but experiencing such warm service does really hammer home how much that can set a place apart from others. It’s truly rare to see a cafe offer such personal service, most certainly helped by the unique magic theme and co-founders doing tricks in their cafe themselves, whilst juggling table service.

And personally, as someone who’s been in the service industry since my teenage years, I think it’s incredibly important to recognise when staff have gone above and beyond to make a service experience special. Sure, it’s early days, but if they can keep the level of enthusiasm I was lucky enough to witness up, I’ll be very impressed.

Overall, C Cafe is a promising cafe that could very well become an East Coast mainstay, with good coffee and good food at decent prices. Should they be able to come up with more dishes unique to C Cafe, I think they could be onto a real winning formula.

Find C Cafe on Facebook and Instagram.

WHERE | 477 JOO CHIAT RD, SINGAPORE 427683