Casa Lapin is clearly part of the ongoing coffee revolution in Bangkok. They have now have four locations in their mini empire, all in carefully selected areas in Bangkok where their style fits. This review is of the the x26 location (that is on Sukhumvit 26) but they also have locations on Sukhumvit 49, Thonglor 17-19 and Phahon Yothin (next to Ari BTS station).
The space is really nicely designed and I like the look of it. When looking around the cool cafe I am however struck by that this easily could have been a cafe in NYC, London, Melbourne, Stockholm or Berlin. The hip design and the coffee, beer (they serve BrewDog on tap) and the food (a mix of brunch/breakfast favorites and pasta and steaks) does not in any way really give away that this is in Bangkok. While I like what they made of it I am missing the connection to the local. The crowd it attracts is also a mix of international travelers (myself included), what appears like affluent young Thais and groups of Japanese women (appearing to be at least somewhat local in that I get the impression they live in Bangkok). Even if I am somewhat disappointed at the lack of bringing out the specific Thai influences it is still a great design and atmosphere here and free wifi makes it easy to just spend a few hours hanging around here.
Service is however another matter, while friendly it brings the word slow to a new level. They serve their hand brewed coffees from what they call a slow bar. I thought they called it slow bar because they hand brew the coffees but maybe it was an idnication that they try to make sloths looking like they are faster than light. The speed of it actually brought new meaning to the word slow. We ordered two hand brewed coffees and there was no one else being served at that time and we still had to wait over 30 minutes for the coffees. No apologies for it taking long or anything and it was not a lack of staff (four people behind the counter doing nothing).
Coffee wise they had four different beans to select from. We tried one Honduras from a local roaster and one Brazilian from another local roaster. Neither was spectacular. They were fairly well made but the beans did not really excite. The Brazilian also suffered from a hint of bitterness, possibly due to over-extraction. Other coffee based drinks were dedent as wel but this is in no way a place that anyone interested in specialty coffee really needs to seek out but if you want a nice place to hang out that can also serve a good cup of coffee it is an option.
Food looked fairly decent but it felt very western inspired but large variety of dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner so no one would need to go hungry here. They serve up some very nice cold beverages as well. It seemed like a place where people really lounge for a long time. It is also connected to a florist, a trendier hostel and office hotel of sorts/share work space (one can rent a desk for a few hours, a day or longer term) as well as a flower shop. All of these are designed in a similar way so seamlessly blend into each other and strengthening the feel of being in a modern urban metropolis that could be anywhere and is being populated by hipsters.
So how does it rate:
Coffee quality: 2.5
Ambiance and Service: 3 (Service 2 and Ambiance 4)
Food: 4
Vs Local Average Competition: 3.5
The Winecurious 
The food looks really good. Kind of surprising that the coffee didn’t step up to this level. Thanks for the review!
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Thanks for the comment. The coffee was not bad just not up the level it should be at a place trying to focus on speciality coffee. They are of course miles better than Starbucks and such but for pure coffee there are many better options in Bangkok. Pehaps it was the disinterested service that reflected in the quality of the coffee as well, if they do not care about good service they are perhaps not interested in providing good coffee either.
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