Kafe UTU - new cafe in Keong Saik with an African theme

Kafe UTU refers to itself as an Afro Cafe & Lounge. This new cafe is located at Jiak Chuan Road, a road that branches off Keong Saik Road. African themed restaurants are not common in Singapore and so we decided to go check out the place for brunch.

A Tour of Kafe UTU

Kafe UTU occupies the entire shophouse at 12 Jiak Chuan Road. The restaurant dining area is on the ground level. The lounge areas are upstairs. Other than beautiful black and white portraits of African people, we did not really feel the African vibes on the ground floor.

It was on the lounge level that we got to experience the African theme. The heavy wooden furniture (from Kenya we were told) combined well with the rich, colourful fabrics. Together with the accessories and artifacts, they worked well together to create a cosy African living room. There is a small alfresco area at the back where one can have a view of the surroundings.

Kafe UTU Menu

The Kafe UTU menu was more mainstream than we had anticipated. There is no exotic meats or insects. There is a “From Mama Africa” section of the menu that has curries and stews with African references.

Our Brunch

We started brunch with some nibbles – buttermilk fried chicken ($15). The strips of deep fried chicken were slightly dry but the spices in the batter gave it a nice taste. It came with three dips – non- spicy, slightly spicy and quite spicy. The hottest one was the best.

Our next two items were mainstream brunch dishes – UTU Bowl ($20) and curried avocado with raw garlic ($16). The UTU bowl contained quinoa, orange zest pickled carrots, egg, pumpkin, avocado and other healthy things. The combined taste of all of them was very good. The avocado toast (picture below) was quite average by comparison.

We only had one item from Mama Africa – the Swahili Fish Curry ($29). It was a good fish curry served with rice. The curry was not too different from the Asian types of curry that we are used to. We did not get any surprises out of Africa with this dish.