Kahve, Saint Heliers

Kahve

1 St Heliers Bay Road,

Saint Heliers

New Zealand

Large flat white: $5

The open kitchen - neat to look at!

This place has pride of place on the corner of Tamaki Drive and St Heliers Bay Road. It’s been there for a while now, and my dad especially seems poisoned against its clientele – professional water drinkers he calls them. According to their website, Kahve is the Turkish word for ‘meeting place’. As I come in, it’s very quiet and a man is sitting having tea, who I assume is the owner, as he gets up and greets me. He makes the coffee for me, but either it’s very early in the day or they don’t like people dropping in for a takeaway coffee.

Coffee: It’s not too bad. It’s not rocking my world, but it certainly holds up over the time to drink it. (4/5)

Milk:  This thing is the let down. It’s kind of – nothing. There’s milk in the cup but no cream taste to speak of. (3/5)

Presentation: Solid cup but no branding whatsoever. It confirms my suspicion that they don’t do a lot of coffee takeaway. (3/3)

Verdict: The restaurant looks great – the open kitchen especially in unusual for NZ places and is intriguing. The coffee isn’t too bad, about the par for St Heliers I think.

Overall rating: 10/13. On par for St Heliers. Probably a really nice accompaniment for a dessert, but as an early morning pick-me-up, I think there’s better out there.