This rooftop pub has great potential

Let’s say you are one of those great wine connoisseurs. Those chaps who spend a whole 10 minutes reading the label on a bottle before swirling the drink, smelling it dramatically with a faraway look in their eyes and then finally tasting it, and waiting dramatically for about five minutes before announcing, “Charcoal, I like it.”

Let’s say you have done the rounds in all the wine-bars in this town and are looking for a new experience. Try this place. It’s at the rooftop of Lavington Curve shopping mall, the new one along James Gichuru.

This is ideally a pizzeria. Their menu has lots of pizza, but also pasta and chicken. I have visited the place twice and I’m convinced that it was designed for the night, not day. It’s quite a lovely place to have a drink in the evening, under the skies and a beautiful vista of the neighbourhood.

The décor is simplistic and creative; low chic wooden chairs on highly polished and grained wooden tables. The main court has umbrellas. You might want to sit on the high tables, for a better view. The space up there is underutilised and so there is lots of room.

I’m not a lover of wine, but I can tell lousy wine. They seem to have decent wine here. Their house wine was some bottle of pinotage which went down well. Not too aggressive.

Outside might get nippy especially now, so you can sit inside which has a very homely feel. There are lots of families having dinner there most evenings, and kids darting around.

I also visited it on a Sunday, for lunch. Lots of children and families. If you pick the wrong umbrella to sit under, the sun might bother you. At the far end of that floor is a trampoline for the kids to get busy on.

Service on the first night started off slightly bumpy (they gave us menus and ignored us) but then I asked to speak to the manager, who was gracious and apologetic and professional. Service during the Sunday lunch was excellent.

This is a great place for a loose Sunday plan with the family or a quiet, romantic outing for couples in the evening if you can avoid the big, loud families with their legion of shrieking kids.