Moonshine Cafe  (Lekki, Lagos)

7A Admiralty Road, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos | 0815 943 8309 | Instagram

Moonshine Cafe is a restaurant, café, and lounge with a rustic interior located in Lekki phase 1, Lagos. The way one of the staff explained it was that downstairs is the Café and upstairs is the Restaurant and Lounge.

There is also an outdoor seating area which is more of a lounge setting (could not get a picture as it was being set up for a proposal). What is meant to be the restaurant area is quite small.  I remember just being on Instagram and somehow stumbling on their Instagram page. These days I have been very underwhelmed by experiences in some of the new restaurants in Lagos. I was craving Duck Lasagne from HSE Gourmet but felt I should give Moonshine Cafe a try.

The interior is quite nice. Nothing over the top but the wooden furniture really caught my eye. Did not understand why there was a helmet and some bike gear on the wall but all na vibes right? I really love the shade of the blue walls 💙

Still, on the interior, I sat downstairs but the chairs were so low and were extremely uncomfortable. How is one meant to eat? What is more annoying is that most restaurants just pack beautiful chairs that are so uncomfortable and the design is not meant for humans. The seating arrangement upstairs didn’t seem better either.

View Lagos Restaurant Menus Here 

The menu is 4 pages long with some breakfast options, grills, and sandwiches, starters, mains, and dessert. From the contents of the menu, it was hard to place what theme Moonshine Cafe was going for. These days restaurants in Lagos want to be a bit of everything and end up being a master of none all in a bid to fully maximize the space *shrugs*

After ordering my meal, I was offered complimentary garlic butter and bread buns.  The buns were not freshly made and tasted like they were at least a day old which was not entirely bad.

Meal

Ordered the Lamb Chops which was called ‘Indonesian Lamb Chops with Stir Fry Rice’. I had plenty had I known moments when this meal was brought to me by the waiter. First, it was oddly plaited and the Rice gave me Indian vibes (you see why I said I could not figure out what exactly Moonshine Cafe is supposed to be). What is meant to be stir fry rice seemed more like fried rice and lacked flavouring – no salt too. It was very bland and somewhat nauseating. I wish I was exaggerating 🙁

As for the Lamb, to be fair, I did not state how I wanted it (be it well done or medium well) and I also was not asked. The waiter seemed to be clueless when it came to the meals and the menu and kept going back and forth to clarify from who I believe was the chef who was having a meal with some folks. Anyways back to the Lamb at Moonshine Cafe. The Lamb was not tender at all and was very very tough. It was much more difficult to eat as I was given a standard table knife – asked for a steak knife aka a sharper knife and instead, the waiter went upstairs (not to the kitchen) and brought a knife that looked like it was for the mixologist to cut oranges for me to eat with.

I ate with it as what was the alternative? But it was disappointing as to the anyhowness of it all. In the end, the knife did the job but ah ah. 

View Moonshine Cafe Lagos Menu Here | click the number and address directly to call or for google maps

The cut of the meat was also something. I did not like it one bit and had really chewy bits I had to spit out or else I would choke since it was not breaking down at all. At this point, I regretted making the decision to dine at Moonshine Cafe or could it have just been the meal of choice that made this such an underwhelming experience. It was quite bleh. There were also hardly any wait staff around to help out and so I had to stand up quite a few times to find someone to attend to me.

To compensate for this disaster of a meal experience, rather than having dessert at Moonshine Café, I went to HSE Gourmet after to get the Red Velvet Milkshake to cleanse my taste buds.

Moonshine Café is opened on Monday – Sunday with the Coffee/Pastry Shop/Café open from 7am till 5pm and the restaurant and lounge open from 11am till 11pm.

Thoughts

The whole experience at Moonshine Cafe was a  solid 2/10 for me.

Moonshine Cafe Lagos Summary

	Ambience	Rustic interior, multipurpose outdoor seating, cafe and restaurant and lounge
	Food Quality	Underwhelming. Lacked flavour and was quite bland
	Location	Easy to find as it is right on the Admiralty road. Street parking is limited.
	Price	Pricing is $$ Total damage came to ₦10,700 Lamb Chops: ₦10,000     |     Orange Juice Glass: ₦700 View Restaurant Menus here
	Service Delivery	Waiter lacked understanding of the menu and loitered around a lot. Poor service

Have you tried Moonshine Café in Lekki, Lagos? What was your experience like? Let us know in the comments.

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