Giraffe launches new café format

Giraffe is adding yet another format, with the London launch of a café brand extension.

Following the opening earlier this year of its first Bar & Grill in Soho, the Giraffe Café opens this month on the site of the original Giraffe restaurant in Hampstead, followed in August by a Wimbledon branch.

The UK-wide group hopes that the new café format will revitalise its neighbourhood restaurants by appealing to a “more cosmopolitan, adult all-day market”.

In place of the restaurant’s trademark orange comes a yellow and copper colour scheme, interspersed with timber and other natural materials for a more sophisticated image.

The café menu promises “simple, fresh, affordable” food, served all day from 7.30am. The breakfast menu includes Giraffe Café specials such as stacked strawberry and banana pancakes with maple syrup, and a breakfast burrito containing scrambled eggs, chorizo, jalapeno chillies and avocado.

The cosmopolitan feel continues with the main courses, which range from mee goreng – Malaysian street food noodles – to parmesan chicken with salsa verde butter, a range of seasonal salads, toasted sandwiches and burgers made from Yorkshire beef.

Diners can also opt for the Giraffe Café Feel Good evening menu, available daily from 5pm, which offers a starter and main course for £9.95.

Giraffe founder Russell Joffe explained this latest brand extension, saying: “Giraffe Café has been designed to reflect the original inspiration behind our first Giraffe restaurant in 1998.

“By returning to our roots and redefining the all-important neighbourhood feel, we believe we have reinvigorated the brand whilst continuing to provide our customers with the same great value and warm welcome they have known and loved over the years.”