This cafe chain, pronounced Elan, has 33 outlets in 11 countries, though I hadn’t heard of it until today. The one in Malaysia opened in Pavilion Mall in July 2023, and it certainly caught the eye as I walked past earlier. Looking like promotional branding from the summer’s hit Barbie, this place is very pink. The first one, on Park Lane, was designed to be “London’s most instagrammable cafe”, and that ambition extends to here too.
The place is covered in fake flowers, both inside and in the external seating area, plus there are geometric designs and allegedly inspirational messages everywhere. It’s a bit much, but my 4 year old loved it. She also loved the staff, who were really friendly and helpful, and made a special effort to keep her happy.
So is it all skin deep? The food was actually excellent, easily surpassing my expectations. Wife and daughter shared fish and chips. While the fish looked like it might have been a little overfried, wife said it was light, crunchy, and even tasted fresh rather than frozen (though it was served quickly). It was served with tartare sauce, mushy peas, and Japanese curry sauce, which feels almost British. The tartare sauce was certainly good enough to be served at any coastal British chippy.
I went for the shakshouka, which was delicious. The best I have had in Malaysia, it had a rich, tangy tomato and pepper sauce, with the right amount of cumin, coriander and even pomegranate for me, and the eggs were cooked perfectly. It came with tasty bread, excellent harissa, and slightly disappointing houmous which was mostly tahini.
We shared a side dish of cheesy bites. These were eight balls of four cheeses blended with chillies, then breaded and fried, and accompanied by a light, tangy, spicy sauce. They were really good – our only complaint was that the portion (though fine for the price) was too big to be a side dish.
Our dessert was something called Dutch Baby Pancakes. It wasn’t Dutch, small, or plural. Or even a pancake – it was a Yorkshire pudding with cream, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Despite the weird name, it was a decent Yorkie, the cream was fresh, and the fruit was juicy.
We also had a couple of drinks. Wife won with her mocktail of frozen strawberry mojito, which was sweet, sour, and referencing.
My ‘Turkish delight’ was meant to be hot chocolate with rose syrup and a couple of bits of Turkish delight, which the waiter suggested I have less sweet. I think that might have meant they substituted beetroot juice for the rose syrup, as my drink tasted a lot more like beetroot than rose. It was ok, though. Again, the cream on top was fresh, which was a plus.
Overall, we enjoyed the food and our time at EL&N and there are enough things on the menu that we could go back a few times. So we will!
Address: C3.10.02, Level 3, Pavilion Mall, 168 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur
Telephone: 0321188833
Website: https://my.elnlondon.com/pages/kl-pavilion (at time of writing some details refer to Bahrain)
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