Celebrate Valentine's day at a millennial pink cafe or restaurant!

Feb 14

Feb 14 Contrived or Chic? The Craze of Millennial Pink Cafes!

Pink everywhere! From the glow of the neon pink inspirational quote mounted on a wall surrounded by bountiful pink and white faux flowers, to the designated photo point with a group of immaculately dressed girls or young women huddled around waiting for their turn to capture a picture. Avocado toasts, afternoon teas with glasses of champagne and pastel coloured cocktails and lattes. From El&n to the Parlour and the Gallery at Sketch. From London, to Paris, Athens to Rome the millennial pink restaurant interior trend seems here to stay.

Concept cafes are nothing new at all, I remember my days in Seoul, always discovering new trendy cafes with a variety of different themes, there was Sherlock, there are cat cafes, raccoon cafes, the 2-D illusion cafe. Plenty of cool and trendy places to hang out and spend the day with friends. But this particular phenomenon started after the American company Pantone announced millennial pink as the colour of the year in 2016 and this trend has shown no signs of stopping any time soon. In fact, it almost seems everywhere I turn there’s a new pink cafe opening. As I write this a new pink cafe has popped up downstairs from my apartment in the tiny Italian town I’m living in. The target audience are mostly girls and young women, a beautifully decorated restaurant and cafe interior to allow us to unleash our girly side and take loads of cute pictures to upload to our personal Instagram’s allowing the business a good deal of free marketing in the process.

In October of 2020 I went home to London and ate at Sketch for the first time (incredible food, impeccable service). While I wasn’t there for afternoon tea and therefore did not dine in the Gallery I noticed how much attention to detail went in to the interior design there, clam shaped art deco inspired chairs in dusty pink, tables covered in luxurious looking white table cloths. Quirky contemporary art adorning the millennial pink painted walls. It truly is an aesthetically pleasing place to hang out with friends or a significant other.

In September of 2021 when I returned home after numerous lockdowns I decided to visit a place I had always passed by and had heard so much about, with stores in London, Dubai, Paris, Doha and many more, El&n cafe is considered an MVP for cakes, brunch and hot beverages. I was a little disappointed that my lactose intolerance meant that my drink options were significantly limited but I opted for a delicious red velvet latte and a brownie that may go down in history for the best I’ve ever tried.

After visting these two hot spots I decided I was fully in favour of these pretty and cute instagrammable cafes though, by the time I got to Ellyz in the centre of Athens in December I had already gotten tired of the trend. I started to notice how the decor all seems to look exactly the same. The same types of flowers adorned everywhere, the same style of multi-coloured drinks and brunch food offered, often not tasting as amazing as anything El&n and other top tier cafes have to offer, the excruciating long wait times as the waiters forget your order and then a poor over-worked barista has to spend about 10 hours sprinkling glittery ‘edible unicorn dust’ onto your cake and making perfectly shaped latte art to the point where your drink is cold before you’ve even received it. Not to mention the teenage girls with a bad attitude noisily chatting in the corner and blasting their tiktoks for us all to hear making us want to scratch the walls in frustration. I think it’s gotten a bit contrived now. Yes free marketing is very business savvy. Yes, many of us love a good instragrammable cafe, more of us than we would like to admit. But where does it end? And why are we scrimping on the quality of service and food in favour of a lack-lustre place telling us to go and ‘manifest our dreams’ in neon lights?