Top In Asia | Giraffe Café & Restaurant brings comforting fare, beautiful bakes & brews to IOI Mall Damansara

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Giraffe Café & Restaurant stretches into new horizons with its latest space in IOI Mall Damansara, launched this month with comforting fare, beautiful bakes and thoughtful brews.

Striking with a nearly 10-foot-tall giraffe sculpture, this is Giraffe Café’s second outpost following its original location in Bandar Sunway’s Sunway GEO Avenue.

From Pulled Beef Sandwiches featuring tender meat slow-cooked for 48 hours to Gyudon brimming with three-day-aged Australian grass-fed beef, every dish is built with skill and care in a welcomingly cosy, Muslim-friendly space.

Fresh pastries are handcrafted here for satisfying textures, spanning Biscoff Crombolonis to Pistachio & Rose Croissants, complete with cakes like the charming Giraffe Swiss Roll and Matcha Chocolate Mint Cake.

Coffee is confidently prepared. Espresso-based beverages are made with a La Marzocco machine, using a single-origin Brazilian house blend for balanced richness. This is also Giraffe Café’s first location for artisanal hand-brews with seasonal beans.

Come for a cheerful all-day brunch with your favourite people, stay for teatime treats and linger for heartwarming dinners – there’s lots of room for everyone in this stylish wood-toned setting that feels timelessly elegant.

Giraffe Café’s all-day brunch menu takes inspiration from international favourites.

Roasted Tomato Soup (RM22) is bright with smoky sweetness, gracefully garlicky, garnished with Giraffe Café’s herbaceous pesto for nutty savouriness.

Quesadilla (RM28) packs a robust punch, with Cajun chicken, mixed capsicums, onions and mozzarella cheese, plus a kick of garlic confit for extra aromatics in house-baked tortillas.

The Pulled Beef Sandwich (RM32) is the heartiest choice, tender and tangy with 48-hour slow-cooked beef, sauerkraut, caramelised onions and barbecue sauce in super-fluffy toasted focaccia, rounded out with mixed greens for a balanced meal.

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Giraffe Café stands tall for its coffee.

Espresso-based options like the Flat White (RM13) harness Giraffe’s own single-origin Brazilian house blend, crafted with a top-tier La Marzocco machine, ensuring temperature-stable extractions via a closed-loop control system for consistency.

This is also Giraffe Café’s first location with artisanal hand-brewed coffee with seasonal beans, such as the current Ethiopia Sidamo and Sumatra Mandheling. The Ethiopia Sidamo is an elegant light-to-medium roast, bright with bergamot, citrus and honey notes for soothing sips.

Craving a flavourful lunch or dinner? Giraffe Café hits the spot with its crowd-pleasing menu, spanning East to West with tantalising ease.

Chicken Fricassée (RM38) is gorgeously plated with paprika-marinated chicken, grilled to joyous juiciness, cushioned with mashed potatoes and vegetables in white sauce that’s circled with parsley herb oil. Nearly too pretty to eat, but irresistible to the last bite.

Squid Ink Risotto (RM48) is worthy of an Italian trattoria, blackened with real squid ink rather than powder, infusing the grains with a marine brininess that lingers subtly on the palate without bitterness. Grilled squid reinforces the ink with extra texture, together with crème fraîche for gentle acidity and Grana Padano for measured salinity.

Prefer a Japanese rice bowl? Check out Giraffe’s Gyudon (RM38), generously blanketed with Australian grass-fed beef, dry-aged for three days for maximum succulence, sautéed with teriyaki sauce and sesame oil for nuanced nuttiness, splashed with sweet shoyu and a perfectly runny onsen egg.

For non-caffeinated coolers, try the Merry Berry, an antioxidant-loaded mocktail of blueberry puree, soda and mint leaves (RM18), and Giraffe’s own-fermented, Mexican-inspired Tepache, packed with probiotics, fizzy like kombucha, made with pineapple peels and core (RM14).

Pastries are handcrafted fresh by Giraffe’s bakers, with top temptations like the Biscoff Cromboloni, brilliantly gooey with Biscoff cream bursting from its centre (RM16), and Pistachio & Rose Croissant, flaky with fine-tuned nuttiness, fragrantly floral (RM18).

Cake enthusiasts, bookmark Giraffe Café for its signature Giraffe Swiss Roll, with a specially striped giraffe pattern for young-at-heart pleasure (RM15 for a slice, RM48 for a full roll), Classic Burnt Cheesecake, smooth and sumptuous (RM22 for a slice, RM200 for a whole cake) and Matcha Chocolate Mint Cake, matcha-forward, making a marvellous match with chocolate and mint (RM22 for a slice, RM158 for a whole cake).