After One is a new cafe around the corner from KLCC. It’s very trendy, and of course has lots of places to take photos, as every new cafe has to these days. It’s oddly loud, perhaps due to the bare concrete floors and walls, perhaps because right now it’s very popular.
It claims to be Michelin star standard, because their head chef worked at a starred restaurant in New York. He’s a vegetarian, but the menu has a range of vegan, vegetarian, and meat based dishes, in breakfast, lunch, and small bites sections. Many of the meat dishes can be made vegetarian or vegan on request.
The decor is pretty minimalist, except for a row of plants down the middle, and some quirky areas such as the shelves full of amplifiers and the wall full of creepy, creepy hands. There’s indoor and outdoor seating, with a covered area at the front, and a concrete patio at the back (which flooded while we were inside, due to very heavy rain). Staff were friendly but not particularly competent, presumably because they were young and new to waiting.
This meant the experience was a bit chaotic, not helped by having an electronic menu you have to scan, but then you have to queue to order and pay. Our food came one dish and one drink at a time, at about five minute intervals. Weirdly, last was the bottle of juice which could have been plucked immediately from the counter!
So was the food worth the wait? Well, yes. The Monte Cristo croissant was filled with turkey and cheese, topped with icing sugar, and served with a sweet and sour fruit jam. It also came with sweet potato chips, which were lukewarm but tasty. Wife and daughter really liked this sweet and savoury croissant dish.
The US grilled cheese was a very good toastie with excellent bread, thick stringy cheese, a hint of garlic, and a perfect tomato dip. Not quite sauce, not quite soup, it was tangy and savoury, and went very well with the rich, crunchy sandwich. Also served with sweet potato chips, this time hot.
Pasta cacio e pepe was spaghetti with cheese and a Sarawak pepper sauce. It was another good dish, though the sauce was a little one dimensional, being full on pepper flavour. Nice if you like that.
Lemon tart was perhaps the weakest dish, and it was still pretty good. The seemingly mass produced pastry case was filled with a decent sour lemon curd, with thyme to give it a bit more depth.
The final thing we tried was the taro cheesecake. New York style, the top layer was sweet and creamy with a hint of sourness, the purple layer was subtly flavoured with taro, and the biscuit base was sweet and a little salty. Very good.
Special mention to the AO Sunrise drink. This floated an espresso on freshly squeezed orange juice, looked attractive, and was absolutely revolting. Damn my neophile tendency!
Overall, despite the teething troubles, After One was an experience worth repeating. I will definitely try again either in a few months, or at a less busy time, to see if it’s settled in. I might revise the review then.
Address: 1 Persiaran Lidcol, Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur
Telephone: 0321810436
Website: https://afterone.com.my
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