REVIEW: ARTBOX CAFE’S HELLO KITTY & FRIENDS
Is this the UK’s Sweetest Cafe?
ARTBOX Cafe’s Hello Kitty & Friends restaurant is catnip for the Insta generation and purr-fect, sugary heaven for children.
The Brighton destination manages to be (almost) as sweet as the desserts. Its fluffy shrine to plushies in the downstairs boutique is filled with kids and Kawaii-fans, wearing glittery petticoats and furry, rabbit-eared cloaks.
Every crevice of the cafe upstairs is themed around Japan's iconic, mouthless cat - including a giant, heavily-papped sculpture at the entrance.
Its catnip is so potent that queues snake outside before it opens, and diners are limited to 60 minute sittings to eat various forms of the Sanrio feline, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Adults in our group eat Kitty White’s sticky rice face surrounded by curry and heart-shaped carrots.
There is also a surprisingly tasty avocado toast in the shape of Keroppi the frog - naturally, surrounded by cheese fish in a pond plant salad.
Meanwhile, our children live their best lives, getting off their chops on sugar with elaborate, cartoonish desserts which are every child’s dream - if parent’s can handle the sugar-high aftermath.
They come in the shape of Cinnamoroll’s puppy face on top of two bouncy pancakes, filled with ice cream, and served with sparkly, blue candy floss on top of cotton candy cream with assorted meringue drops, gummies and raspberries.
Gasps are drawn by the size of My Melody’s Flowerberry Waffle - a teetering tower of pink strawberry waffles covered in Biscotti.
Reader, that is not all, as my delighted son discovers as his spoon dives into ice cream disguised as the woodland rabbit, and a seemingly never-ending succession of sugar flowers, lollipops, macarons, edible rose petals and heart-shaped strawberries.
He delights in the edible sugar flowers and then valliantly munches through most of the bunny ears, before we realise they are made from actual cardboard.
No opportunity for theming (and sugar) is overlooked, including the drinks - elaborate bubble teas and mocktails, served with giant straws decorated with Kitty’s trademark bow, with rims lined in brightly coloured (you guessed it) sugar.
ARTBOX Cafe’s Hello Kitty & Friends, 5-6 East St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1HP.
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