This Colombo institution is a great spot to have a drink, a light meal or a snack and to chill out in a peaceful and natural setting. 

At the very back of the Barefoot retail store in Colombo 3 - away from exhaust fumes and klaxons - you’ll find a lush and vast courtyard. This is the Barefoot Garden Café: an oasis in bustling Colombo.

While the food can be a bit over-rated here, the quality and extensive choice of drinks, the location and the ambience make it an ideal stop for a shopping break or a lazy sunny afternoon or evening. 

Drinks

Barefoot Garden Café offers a large range of drinks: from fresh juices, smoothies, mil shakes, tea, coffees to beer and wine. You will surely find something to quench your thirst, and at a pretty reasonable price.

On this hot and sunny day, we opted for a lime and mint soda (Rs. 320) and their homemade ginger beer (Rs. 460). The drinks delivered and were very refreshing. 

Although the ginger beer is bit pricey, it’s actually worth digging your wallet for: it's spicy, refreshing and well balanced. If you're wondering, the floating chickpea-looking ball in the glass is a sultana and not something that fell from the canopy above. 

The lime and mint soda was also nice and fresh and it’s always a good option to have the syrup on the side to sweeten it up as you please.

The Coffee

Coffees are of good quality in Barefoot Garden Café and reasonably priced. The cherry on the cake is that they all come with a lovely little biscotti, à l’italienne. 

In need of a jolt of energy, my companion got a double espresso (Rs. 300). Look at that crema! Beautiful! Being addicted to crema since my youngest age, I couldn’t resist jumping on the cup and getting the first sip. It was subtle and aromatic and provided the promised punch.

The Food

Barefoot Garden Café menu caters for everyone and every need: bites for those feeling peckish, more substantial meals like sandwiches, quiches and curries for rumbling stomachs and desserts for the sweet tooth. 

Our emphasis this time was on sandwiches. Bread was fresh and soft. Some effort and creativity was put into the fillings but the end result was not spectacular.

 The Roast Pork sandwich (RS. 750) was rather alright. The meat, which had been marinated in soy sauce, was tasty but a bit dry. The sandwich definitely lacked green goodness and unfortunately the salad was more of an ornament to the plate.

The Fresh Tuna Sandwich (Rs. 750) raised the game. The pan-seared tuna was moist and the tomato salsa (made of tomato, capsicum, garlic, chili and oil) enlightened the dish. Simple but efficient.

We then indulged in the Death By Chocolate Cake (Rs. 770) and the Passion Fruit Mousse (Rs. 680), which happily happened to be a great combo. The light and fluffy texture of the mousse and the tanginess of the passion fruit beautifully accompanied the rich and dense chocolatey cake. A tad too sweet though. I probably won’t rate them as the best desserts in town but they were still quite good.

Ambience

Undeniably their biggest asset! 

Decked out with contemporary wooden furniture and their own colorful Barefoot branded table linen and decorations, the café mirrors the vibrant and elegant style of the shop.

Nestled in a peaceful courtyard paved with uneven stones and scattered with ponds and majestic trees casting pleasant shade in the afternoon, Barefoot Garden Café atmosphere is very serene. You’ll feel miles away from the hectic Galle Road in no time. 

The excellent choice of jazzy music in the background adds to the coziness and timelessness of the place. I find the whole ambience really inviting and relaxing. You just want to sit down, enjoy a drink or two in good company and forget about the time. 

Service

The service perfectly matches the ambience of the café; it is extremely pleasant and efficient. We were greeted with warm smiles from the team as soon as we entered the courtyard. The staff is attentive and friendly as well as helpful. They were knowledgeable about the menu and gave us good recommendation when we were hesitating between dishes.

Conclusion

While I won’t say the food is show-stopping, Barefoot Garden Café is an awesome place to have a drink and unwind in Colombo, whether it’s day or night when live music or quiz nights are on. One of my favourite outdoor cafés in town.

Barefoot Cafe is undoubtedly one of the most popular hangout spots in Colombo. With its chic outdoor setting, good food and great music its easy to see why.

The Food

One reason why Barefoot Cafe has remained favoured by Colombars over the years is because they offer something only a handful of others do, which is a great atmosphere with consistently good food. We did, however, run into a hiccup during this visit. We found a hair in one of our dishes. While this may not be a big deal to some, others find it just the opposite. However, they did handle the situation well. These things happen every now and again so we understand, everything else was on point. Barefoot has a standard menu with sandwiches and salads, but the mains are cycled throughout the week. When it comes to prices expect to pay around Rs. 1500 - Rs. 2000 per head after taxes and service charge.

The quiche lorraine (Rs. 900) was one of three quiche options available on the day. We went with this one since it had bacon. You get a sizeable slice which is packed full of the savory custard which had cheese, cream, bacon and diced veges. It's very hard to go wrong with cheese, cream and bacon so this one was very rich and just plain tasty. It comes with a side of salad which feels like is there to make you feel less guilty about the pastry.

The pork curry (Rs. 900) is served with fried rice, salad and a bit of curd as a dressing. This is where we found the hair, but they were quick to replace the entire dish. The pork curry itself was well seasoned and lightly spicy. It's also a larger portion than it seems. The rice was also well cooked and unlike other places they don't give you a ton of rice, which is fine since the emphasis should be on the pork.

Their crème brûlée (Rs. 500) is one of the best you'll come across in Colombo. It has the perfect little crack when you tap the sugar with the spoon and a rich custard filling. What I really loved about it was that the custard itself wasn't overly sweet, instead relying on the caramelized sugar to add that little extra sweetness.

The almond caramel tart (Rs. 55o) was also really good. I'm not the biggest fan of almonds but just the caramel sauce could have had me sold on it. Combine that with the warm tart and a scoop of ice cream and you get that mix of hot and cold that works so well with desserts.

Ambience & Service

If you think about it Barefoot Cafe is really all about location, location, location. The garden area itself is intrinsically beautiful so all they needed to do was bring in some tasteful furniture. Another thing that Barefoot nails time and time again is the music, which just works really well in the background while you chat away.

Barefoot is almost always crowded so service time won't generally be very fast, but they won't keep you waiting too long either. We were impressed by the waiters since they were a bit understaffed on the day we dropped in. They managed to handle all the tables, not mess up any orders (as far as we could see) and still do it all with a smile.

Conclusion

Barefoot will always be a solid choice for either a place to grab a bite to eat or to just hang back and grab a beer. It gets crowded but the garden is spacious so you don't really feel cramped, plus the food and music is good enough you don't feel the time go by.

Location

Food And Beverage

Service

Events