Kensington Cafe

Nothing on my 4.99 breakfast special plate tasted good. Manager was rude– asked for ketchup to cover up the taste and he said «come up here and get it»

I wish there was an option on here for giving 0 stars because this place is really that bad. I guarantee that anyone who is familiar with Kensington market knows not to go to this café, especially when there are so many better alternatives in close proximity.
Moving away from the sub par food/​service/​atmosphere mentioned in the other reviews, the owner of the café is one of the most two-​faced jerks I have ever met. I suppose this review is becoming a little personal now, but I just want to warn others to not be fooled by his façade. I will not discuss the details of our interaction, but he was extremely rude, when the situation did not necessitate such a response. I will make it my personal crusade to save as many oblivious tourists from wasting their money at this place.

Overall, not so impressed with the café. I had a spinach omelette with sausage and a chai latte. Everything was bland. No taste and pretty small portions. My chai cup was only half full… There are better restaurants for brunch in the area. Maybe this place is better served as a coffee on the go place rather than actual food.

Good coffee, and they appear to have a decent selection of food, even having some gluten-​free items.
However, the service is slow… they even forgot my order at one point, forgetting to take the pastry I selected to the table I was sitting at.
Also, with my cappuccino they gave me a stir stick, why? Plus, they sometimes use styrofoam plates for their food. Not only is it wasteful, it means if you have food to cut through, your knife or fork will go through the plate.

Service is consistently bad but the crepes are worth coming back for if you live with in walking distance. Definitely go around the corner to Moon Bean if you want a coffee! They also use styrofoam for their take out containers and consistently get orders wrong.

To be absolutely honest, I am surprised that this place has survived these past couple of years. All the times I’ve been here, my experience has barely scraped average in every aspect — food, service, atmosphere. I suppose the only thing that they have going for them is their coffee, which is quite good, but in Kensington, saying that you have good coffee is like saying that you make really good plain white rice in Chinatown. It’s a given, people. You’re not doing yourselves any favours by patting yourselves on the back over this, because hyping people up for the «best coffee in [I forget whichever ridiculously large geographical location they claim to have the best coffee in]» is only going to disappoint your customers, since a) that is completely subjective, and b) probably something like 95% of customers don’t give a shit either way about getting the «BEST» coffee, just «good» coffee. Maybe «really good» some days.
Well, that was my little rant about their marketing strategy. Moving on now with the rest of my review.
I should probably caveat this review with the fact that I’ve only been there twice, but really, why would you want to go keep going back to a subpar place?
Anyway — both times I had a somewhat disappointing experience. The first time, I went in at a rather busy period, ordered a crêpe, proceeded to wait half an hour for it, and when it finally came out, it wasn’t what I ordered. I almost left at that point (out of annoyance and also out of hunger) but instead I waited for them to make a new one which took all of ten minutes.
The second time, nothing like that happened. In fact, it was while my mom was here visiting. I live in the area, and one day while I was off running errands on my own, she went for a walk through Kensington Market. Later on in the day when we met up, she reported back on this place that supposedly does this amazing brunch (I am always on the lookout for good brunch places), and I got excited for a moment before she told me what it was called. I decided, though, not to mention my last experience there, because who knows? Maybe they’ve completely changed since the last time I went.
So we went and this time I got the regular breakfast (the one with eggs and toast) and she got the cinnamon crêpe. Even though it was pretty empty (just two or three tables were taken), our food took an abnormally long time to come (not crazy long like the last time) but still enough for us to finish our coffee and stare into the bottom of our mugs longingly while waiting for our food.
The food, again, was nothing special. I’m not going to say something silly like, «I could cook something better at home!» because really, people, the reason why we go out to eat is to save ourselves that effort. But my issue with the food was that it tasted like «something I cooked at home and left on the counter until the toast decided to uncrisp* itself and the eggs congealed before I realized this and decided to fork it subconsciously into my mouth in front of the laptop so that my brain wouldn’t register how meh it is». My mom also didn’t seem to find the crepes particularly OMGDELICIOUS in any way.
Part of the problem here is probably, as I’ve said above, the marketing. Shockingly, advertising your food as the BEST THING EVAR is going to make people expect getting the BEST THING EVAR. Imagine that. Pretty high expectations to live up to.
That being said, if not for its Wi-​fi (which I didn’t use, but probably never will now), corner location, and coffee, I would have given it two stars. The rest of the café (not near the window) is also poorly lit. Again, it’s not that it’s horrible; I just don’t see the relative advantage of coming here over the dozens of better cafes in, what, a hundred meter radius?
Kensington Café won’t be getting my patronage again — at least not until I hear better.
* Yes, I make up words.

Kensington Café was truly an A-​OK, down to the tee. I came here on a day over the holidays, when nothing else was open in Kensington Market. The prices were more expensive than neighbouring Chinatown’s, but nothing outrageous. Crêpe and soup lunch combo cost me around $ 10. You order at a counter, cafeteria-​style, pay right there, then grab a seat. They’ll come and bring the food to you at your seat.
The ham-​and-​spinach crêpe was okay. Like, just okay. I swear I’ve made better at home. It was thicker than I’d prefer and the fillings weren’t that flavourful. It came with some kind of thick, bean-​filled soup in a mug, which was nice at first because it was warm (and I was cold), but soon revealed itself to be unappetizing.

Just getting a quick bite to eat at Kensington market on my way to a foot massage, I came across Kensington at the corner of Baldwin and Kensington. It’s a sit down café, but orders are taken at the cash in the front. It attracted me with the big sign that said Gluten Free Menu.
I’ve been on this restrictive food elimination diet now, so I certainly appreciated the option to find something that I can eat. They have Gluten free Crepes (filled with pesto, spinach and sausage/​bacon) or Muffins, and eggs with gluten free waffles, among some on the menu.
I got the Gluten free Crêpe and requested the Vegan Pesto (no diary). On the menu it said $ 9.99, but she charged me 10.65 with a drink. Something fishy.
They are slow to take your order, but quick in preparation. I noticed the order before me was made out of a premade crêpe, and mine out of the batter from a bowl. Maybe they ran out, maybe my gluten free one is more fresh than the non, or she just forgot and charged me for the wrong one, which is why I went to my massage with the sniffles. I’m not sure.
I kind of expected the crêpe to be put inside a paper bag (a la Crepes a Go Go) so I can eat and walk at the same time. I don’t know why I expected that and why I was shocked to be given a styrofoam box and cutlery. I realized this is NOT crepes a gogo, and I sat down on one of hte swing set chairs and scarfed down my crêpe.
It was good, a little mushy. Not sure if it was the gluten free ness.
Prices were a bit steep.

The Kensington Café might be remembered from a few years back as one of those greasy breakfast joints with great coffee and eclectic decore. But, after a makeover mission provided by the Slice Network’s «Restaurant Makeover,» the café was transformed in to a minimalist, streamlined gourmet french creperie serving all day breakfast in the form of upscale stuffed omelets, crepes, pastries and still, the amazing coffee, carefully selected and brewed by owner, Henrie Sibonney.
Being at the heart of Kensington Market, the Kensington Café is still a great place for hanging out, people watching, and, cruising the net thanks to the free wifi.