Note: Temporarily closed
Thinking of paying The Story Eatery Marketplace a visit? This inconspicuous hipster café in Ipoh New Town houses plenty of room to hosts some intimate functions. And they have space for a florist too.
We visited this café with some friends from out of town and this is our experience coming here on Friday for lunch.
Here’s what you should know about this cafe.
Table Of Contents:
About
The Story Eatery Marketplace opened in December, 2020. And despite the bad timing (since this is when the pandemic began too), they’ve managed to pull themselves out of dark times.
December is an especially interesting time to visit The Story Eatery Marketplace as they have a special menu for Christmas.
They are open every day (except on Wednesdays), from 11am until 5pm on weekdays, or 9pm on weekends.
Look out for their all-day brunch and other festive promotions (e.g. valentines’ day) on their Facebook. This is where they also actively introduce new items in their menu.
This is not a halal eatery as they do have pork chops and other pork dishes on the menu.
Ambiance
In our opinion, this is one of the most attractive cafes you can visit in Ipoh. The café is comfortably cool too with air conditioning throughout the space.
There is a florist station full of dried flowers right as you walk into the spacious eatery.
Of seats, there are many although most of the seating arrangements favor large groups and families. High open shelves filled with plants line the length of the café, providing some privacy for diners sitting by the windows.
On the opposite side is the counter where you can buy cakes from the display.
At the very far end of the café is a small plant-filled courtyard that is a perfect backdrop for Instagram snaps – complete with vintage chairs. This is also where the toilets are.
Since we came on a Friday at around 1pm, there were quite a lot of people dining in. However, it was not noisy even with multiple conversations going on and with music playing in the background.
Service
The waitresses (or the one that served us anyways) are very attentive from the moment we entered.
They explain the set menu of the day, and how we can order through the QR code that is displayed at each table.
Drinks arrived first, followed by the mains (served one by one) a bit later. We asked for an extra plate and the waitress returned with one (plus an extra set of cutlery) shortly too.
So on the whole, we have no complaints about the service at The Story Eatery Marketplace.
Food
Although the waitress gave us physical menus, there are some items that are not on these but are available through the app (e.g., duck confit can be ordered ala carte).
Note: If you want to order the set, order through the waitress, not with the app.
The food menu is quite wide and has an appetizing selection of risotto and pasta. Surprisingly, the coffee and drinks menu is pretty small (e.g., there is no matcha latte here) but they do have some interesting items like smoothies with different combinations of fruit.
Seafood risotto was alright. To be fair, the presentation was better than the taste.
The best dish we got was the duck confit. But the meatball Bolognese spaghetti and avocado pesto pasta were delicious and flavorful too.
Of drinks, three of us chose to go with bottled water and this was served together with 3 glasses with a slice of lemon each.
Our set (duck confit) came with one of their refreshing drink series – passionfruit with lime and sparking water. It was indeed very good for quenching thirst.
The latte was not bad either.
Pricing
For 5 pax, we ordered 4 mains, 2 drinks, and 1 bottle of water. This came up to RM145 which is pricey considering that one of us did not have a main.
But there is something to be said about the quality of the food:
You really get quality ingredients in their mains. Like chunks of almonds to top mashed potato, and fresh thyme for the duck confit.
Or olives and slices of red and green peppers with the Bolognese spaghetti as well as fairly big prawns for the seafood risotto.
The portions are quite generous too. Mains do cost between RM20 to RM30.
Coffee is not as expensive as we anticipated – around RM13 a cup. A slice of cake from the counter costs around RM16.
Ease Of Parking
The Story Eatery Marketplace is not far from Pusing Public Restaurant and Pi Hotel.
There are many parking lots here but if these are all taken, there’s also a paid carpark (opposite Pusing Public Restaurant) that is walking distance from the café (RM3 per vehicle).
Conclusion
We are marking The Story Eatery Marketplace as one of our favorite new cafes in Ipoh. To us, the pricing is justified, given the lovely environment, good food and service.
If you don’t want to spend too much, you can just come here for cake and coffee. Although we think that the food here is genuinely well done. This is a very nice place to have a family lunch, dinner, birthday celebration, or similar.
