Kitchenette bills itself as a restaurant and creperie and has just opened in the ever popular Plaza Indonesia Extension just opposite Bistro Baron (which your ever fi nger-on-the-pulse Jakarta Java Kini reviewed in last month’s issue). Inside, the ‘structured messiness’ of the decor has been skilfully created in order to engender an amiable, social ambience, much like that of a family kitchen. Pans hang from the walls and there are kitchen utensils and shelves crammed with culinary knickknacks all over the place. The kitchen also sits slap bang in the centre of the restaurant and you can thus watch the expert chefs whipping up some crepes or galettes (savoury crepes) before your eyes.

It’s all very cosy and is already proving a popular draw for Plaza Indonesia’s high-powered shoppers. Completely spurning pretentious modernity and minimal artsy furnishing, Kitchenette really is a happy place in which to while away a few hours going over the latest gossip with your nearest and dearest chums. Certainly, the reasonable prices encourage one to extend one’s stay here.

The restaurant’s main focus is on its magnifi cent French style crepes and galettes. These are all made using 100 percent natural ingredients, including organic buckwheat fl our, and are whipped up in front of your eyes in the family style open kitchen. On our visit we tried an Arnaud Galette (Rp.69,000), a delicious mix of beef hamburgers, fried egg, Dijon mustard sauce, Swiss cheese and caramelised grilled onions, all wrapped up in a lovely crepe of course. This novel dish proved to be a fi rst-rate snack and the ingredients were defi nitely of a high quality. The hamburgers in particular had been lovingly made from some very tasty ground beef.

As for the crepes, we tried a Claudette (Rp.35,000) which is a delicious mix of roasted bananas, vanilla pods, butter caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. Not the healthiest of snacks but damned toothsome nonetheless. We washed our sweet and savoury snacks down with a couple of Kitchenette’s signature fruity Elixir creations. These come served in cute olde worlde jam jars and are absolutely magnifi cent, containing, as they do, soda, fresh fruit and those wonderful Monin syrups (which you can now buy in town in certain upmarket supermarkets, they don’t come cheap though). The Mango and Orange and the Strawberry and Kiwi Elixirs really hit the spot and are apparently some of the restaurant’s most popular items.Returning to the Kitchenette menu, you’ll fi nd that it’s not all French style crepes and galettes. There’s also Uncle Raul’s Spanish Tapas to try and we have to say that the Spanish Meatballs (Rp.59,000) were perhaps the best thing that we chowed down at Kitchenette. As with the hamburgers, the ground beef was of an extremely high quality and the chorizo sauce was simply out of this world. We’ll be back for another of these, you mark our words.

Mexican, Italian and Asian dishes also make a brief appearance on the menu and so there should be something for everyone down at Kitchenette. If you’re after some informal and yet charming dining after a hard day browsing Louis Vuitton handbags next door, then head to Kitchenette for a fun fi lled fi esta, it’s cute, cuddly and won’t break the bank.