Cats Cafe Des Artistes

Cats is definitely an interesting Thai place! From the giant leopards leaping off the sign to the leopard print sofas and dark wood tables, the décor alone is worth the visit.
The service and food, however, could use some improvements. I ordered Pad Thai, which is a pretty typical Thai dish that any Thai restaurant worth their salt should be able to make. My Pad Thai at Cats lacked flavour and tasted like carrots. This was unfortunate as Thai food has so many amazing flavours. My friends (both vegetarian) ordered dishes that were also standard Thai fare like Green Curry. Their dishes were also mediocre. While the food was not disgusting, it certainly wasn’t outstanding either.
The service was okay to begin with, but we had trouble catching the waitresses attention to get our bill. I quite unlike not being able to get a waitresses attention! In general, this was not the best or worst customer service that I’ve experienced in the UK.
Price wise, for one appetiser, prawn crackers, three mains, and a bottle of the house wine was roughly 20 GBP/​person. Therefore, the price isn’t bad, but this is roughly the price that I would expect to pay at any Thai restaurant in London.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Cats, but I also wouldn’t urge someone to not go there as I found it mediocre at best. The other Unilocal reviews seem to express similar opinions as stars fluctuate from two to five stars. I guess if you’re considering Cats it may be worth checking out and deciding yourself.

I usually pass this restaurant but it never appealed to me till I saw the Unilocal sticker on the window. After reading reviews we booked a table and give it a go.
This place looks small from the outside but is bigger inside also has a small fish pool along with wooden décor — somehow a weird mix; celebrity pictures on the wall, animal printed seats and some Thai objects around-​.
When it comes to food I can easily say that average Thai food is served. We had prawn tempura what was heavily battered, chicken satay — was ok– as starter. We did not eat the batter due to it was under-​cook and soggy. Then we ordered our mains; the chicken pad thai, sweet sour fried chicken and house special three taste sauce tilapia fillet. All these meals are below average. The sauce was too sweet and noodle was greasy.
Staff was under-​trained, did not look experienced enough for this cuisine. The guy from the kitchen, I think he was the owner, came and asked us if we have been served as he also noticed that we was waiting for a while to be served. I‘m granting 2 starts to this place because lack of quality and taste.

Amazing Thai restaurant! One of the best in London. Their dishes are authentic, the décor is authentic and the staff are really friendly and efficient. It is always busy and the locals love it. They also do takeaway and are really quick. Try the ember curry with coconut rice it’s delicious!

Mediocre, very anglicised Asian food. The restaurant is supposedly Thai but the menu is a mishmash of different Asian cuisines. This is not necessarily a bad thing but trying to do everything well usually results in doing very little well.
We got a bunch of things to share. Tempura shrimp came fried in a heavy batter, not light Japanese panko; dumplings turned out to be tasteless Chinese siu mai; pandan leaf chicken was made with very dry chicken breast.
Our selection of mains were slightly better but not by much. Pad see ew was bland. The Chef’s Special had potential but the seafood was completely overcooked and not fresh (perfect dish if you wanna see how hard and chewy a scallop can get). The two slightly better dishes were the massaman beef and the tamarind duck. We also got a broccoli and asparagus which was fine but ultimately just a basic stir fry (you’d really have to try to screw this one up).
It wasn’t a horrible experience. It’s cheap as chips so if you want a quick meal, it’s the spot to go. But overall, the food could be significantly better.

A little more than I would pay for a spontaneous takeaway but by gosh was it worth it!
We opted for the amber veg curry, plain rice, chicken pad thai and 2 types of prawn starter (including tempura). The prawns were so juicy and perfectly cooked. The curry had so much depth of flavour, not too perfumed like you sometimes get. The pad thai was a little too sweet for me but still ate every last morsel.
Definitely going back to sit in — looks like the kind of querky place it would be nice to take a group!

Passed this place many times and yeah, it does look unusual and I always felt curious. So one night we were hungry and decided to give it a try with my sis. The service is very nice, not at all annoying, but very attentive. The décor is cool, we loved foreign money from all over the world under the table glass. The food is tasty. I had duck, which was very good. My sister was blown away with their cocktail Screaming orgasm. ;) I’d definitely recommend!

I’ve been several times, and the food always alternates between amazing and so-​so.
It’s got lots of character, and it’s a lovely place to go for lunch, as well as for a late dinner. Some of the dishes on the set menu are (can be) very good.

Nice, quirky restaurant with some decent dishes good veggie selection too, and I love the décor! However, the service when we attended was awful: our starters arrived before our drinks did (bit of a pet hate for me) and not especially early, either. Normally when this happens a waiter/​ess will immediately remedy the situation, but on this occasion we were told ‘oh, the drinks will take a little while’(!)
So, after waiting 20 minutes for our drinks (by which time we were done with the starters) we had another extended wait before the mains arrived, missing one dish. Again, staff weren’t particularly apologetic, and left us a good ten minutes without the dish which did kind of ruin the meal tbh.
I’d go back, on the assumption that the staff were having an off day (they all seemed very young and some may have been new) but I wouldn’t give them a third chance if it happened again!

This place. Blows the mind. I had passed it many times and always thought it looked quirky and interesting, but Thai food isn’t my favorite so I never really prioritized going in. I met a friend for lunch on a Sunday and had my world rocked. The décor is worth the visit alone. Do you like cats? Domestic cats, jungle cats, ANY CATS? This place is probably what the inside of my brain looks like.
The food itself is good. Not too fancy, but affordable and tasted fresh. There’s a £7.95 lunch special that is pretty fantastic. If you fancy some Thai food and like weird things, I could not recommend this more. The staff was really nice, too, and overall just make it a comfortable experience.

The food is amAzing, total bargain for what it is! Highly recommend! But man, the service is SOO Slow! This is my 2^nd time here, both times it happens to be a Friday; both times we waited for 30 mins for someone to take our drinks order. Then another 15 for food… Order. Don’t come on Fridays!

At first I was put off by the name. A bit of a strange place, didn’t seem like a restaurant in the UK if that makes sense Food is OK, service friendly, worth a visit and filled a hole, but all in all, a bit average.

There are so many places to choose from along this street that a restaurant needs to stand out. Before you even walk in you are welcomed with a giant glass window entrance where you can see the good ol Tuk Tuk parked and waiting for you. Seriously, there is a three wheeled vehicle parked inside the restaurant. Not only that but the place is decorated like a cross between the tiki room at Disneyland and Fred Flintstone’s living room. Great date place.
Just ordered the shrimp pad thai for takeaway. Delicious. Good quality. A little on the pricey side but like I said before, this american girl is still getting used to the exchange rate for quality eats.

A mediocre Thai joint in Finsbury Park. Food was not very fresh or flavoursome. A bizarre collection of ornaments makes for an atmosphere with some character … although it’s not really that endearing, just odd. Still, enough (along with the friendly service) to lift this from a 2-​star to a 2 and a half-​star rating in a world where the uniform and bland triumphs over individuality and uniqueness. The reviews below are quite surprising to me, but as they were written a while ago I can only assume the chef moved on. Having been to many a Thai restaurant, I can safely advise you not to go out of your way for this one. Very average.

Very nice. It’s the first time I’ve had Thai food outside of Thailand which has transported me straight back there. It’s not like the Bangkok street food (I’ve yet to find anywhere that is). It’s more like the slightly more upmarket restaurants you get there. Good range of dishes (including fish and vegetarian), friendly staff, quirky décor and decent prices. What’s not to like?

Really nice authentic tasting thai food, the restaurant is much more spacious than it first looks from the outside and stretches around the back. Well worth a visit.

I have often walked past Cats but never really thought to go in. It’s an interesting looking restaurant with a fantasically elaborate wooden façade — the heavy wood theme streams through the restaurant giving the furniture a very decadent feel. this might be a little alarming at first but really it’s quite wonderfully quriky!
We went on a Friday night around 7.30 and it was quite quiet — fortunate for us as it soon became v busy at around 8! We didn’t book but the staff were very nice and quickly found us a table.
The menu was surprisingly vast — it had a few none Thai exclusive meals like Penang curry and massaman which were really cool additions. they suggest choosing a few dishes to share if you are in a big group, as such they play on the idea of sharing and having fun! It also means you have to buy rice/​noodles seperately but the rice prices were reasonable. There is a great vegetarian range with some nice fried tofu varients of the popular dishes.
We choose roast duck curry and
fried tofu with red curry paste & chillies, ordering a coconut rice and sticky rice seperately. You really couldn’t fault the presentation. The coconut rice was housed in a coconut bowl complete with top & the steamed sticky rice came in a Chinese wicker basket. As great as the presentation was, it has to be said that the food was equally amazing! The tofu was chewy and airy like a balloon with a subtle hot taste. The duck was succulant and creamy and worked surprisingly well with sticky rice.
Alot of happy faces say that this place is definately a good thing — check em out!

A little bit of an odd place, this, but it turns out tasty Thai food to the waiting mouths of the Stroud Green posse night after night.
But yeah, it’s quite a curious joint. The tables are huge, heavy carved wooden things — some of them even have a carved arch over the top of them with a light hanging down. More than a little kitsch. The waiting staff are friendly and quick on the uptake (something which I have been experiencing a bit of a lack of in London of late, so it made a good change), very welcoming, always making sure you’re not kept waiting too long.
The food is pretty good Thai — by no means totally ‘authentic’, but then what is? Big plus points go to the pineapple rice (served inside a pineapple no less), well cooked veggies and spicy salads. Curries were good too, but very much toned down from the fire you get out in SE Asia. But as we well know, we’re not, here we’re out amongst the wig shops, market stalls and cafes of Stroud Green Road, and Cats is one of those dependable and decent features that the neighbourhood would be all the poorer without.

My friend had been raving about this place for ages, and finally took me along last night.
Setting it quirky, but the food is really great. Portions are extremely generous, we couldn’t finish ours (this never happens). The coconut rice is fantastic

An unassuming Thai restaurant which seems to have been here for years, but been consistently very good the whole time. Nice atmosphere inside — big carved tables and a bar with a bit of character to it.
Quality food (I’m a great fan of their three taste sauce) at more of a Finsbury Park than Crouch End price.
Great service, and they also do a takeaway (though watch out for the long waits Fri/​Sat nights).

Such a cute restaurant with lovely ambiance! I fell in love with this place several years & I still frequently take trips up from south London to enjoy its delicious Thai food. The best starter in the house is the spicy Thai sausages — unexpected and delightful. I personally love the Thai currys, but they do wonderful seafood grills, meat dishes and other things. The wine list is very good and the prices are extremely reasonable. About £3−6 for a starter, £8−12 mains. Roughly £5 cocktails.
The décor is very eclectic, with a Thai tooktook (can’t spell) at the front. The tables and chairs are all heavy wood carved masterpieces & the tables have glass tops with really cool foreign notes & coins stuffed underneath. Great conversation starter, that. They also do takeaway.