Cafe Clem

Favorite café in town… Fantastic meals and very friendly staff… Food is excellent quality and atmosphere makes me feel like I’m in France… Love everything I’ve tried, highly recommend the Grilled Cheese, Rustique au Thon with avocado, and the breakfast croissant…

This place only gets two stars because their hot chocolate, chocolat chaud is delicious, if they are ever open to get it. I have gone a total of four times trying to go and every time they are closed during their ‘scheduled hours’. This morning, they open at 7:30 but by 7:40 they still weren’t ready to open. Seriously? How hard is it to post your real hours online or communicate them in someway? Especially since I no longer live in Berkeley and it’s a drive to come here. Not only that, when you do go in, their staff is distracted and rude.

If they consistently brought out orders to the table, and consistently had enough ceramics to serve orders consumed in-​house, this café would be much more relaxing.

If I could give zero stars I would. The food is horrible, the service and attitude of the employees sucks. It was an overall bad experience. My family will not be going back ever again and we will definitely not be recommending coming here either.

As a celiac, I rarely get to have sandwiches out and about that don’t taste like cardboard. Here all of the sandwiches can be made gluten free on gluten free baguettes which are soft and crunchy, plus they have yummy salads and a wide selection of gluten free pastries. My favorite are the almond macaroons which taste like they are made from marzipan. For sandwiches, I love the turkey and cheese with arugula. Love the outdoor café seating. Customer service was just so so… it was an awkward bit of effort to get some mustard.

I sometimes come here to eat lunch and something always goes wrong.
1. After reminding them twice about my order they took 25 minutes to make my grilled cheese sandwich.
2. My friend ordered a iced chai latte, they ended up giving her HOT chai latte.
3. They charged my salad which had no cheese for the price of the salad that does have cheese.
Overall bad service.

Cute café, decent latte and almond croissant was flaky but not much almond filling.
The main thing that was annoying was the constant bickering between the cashier and girl making the drinks. They also forgot our mimosas and the croissant and we had to remind them twice. Then two different people had to check the age on our IDs because they don’t trust each other.
Just annoying. So much potential but horrible customer service.

These guys get 5 stars Just for the Le Dinde, Fromage et Roquette (Turkey And Cheese Sandwich) My mouth waters every time I think about Café Clem because of this sandwich. They have lots of other goodies, we tried some pastries which were great the first time here but it was the sandwich that brought us back. Even with the $ 9.00 price tag it’s a deal and plenty big for a meal. The hours keep us from going here at night so we take the Yetti Moose Lamb and he is quite happy to be there because he loves people. The grilled cheese sandwich is his favorite menu item here. The servers are great with him but a lot of the customers are put off so we don’t visit as often as we’d like to. This is a tiny place that gets very busy but the line moves fast and there is seating outside and most days would be comfortable.

I think this place is owned by the same people as La Note and that’s instantly recognizable — there are many of the same dishes and the cute outdoor/​indoor décor. Plus side? Way less of a wait and I think the dishes are much more reasonable priced for some reason!
I got the egg salad sandwich (sorry I don’t know the snazzy French name), but it was delicious! The bread had just the right amount of crunch and the eggs were just soft and whipped enough without tasting oily/​milky. All the toasted sandwiches looked delicious and I will definitely be coming back to try them out!

This is a great breakfast joint. I can easily spend a morning here enjoying one of their breakfast croissants watching people walk by and imagine that I am in some side street in Paris. Very low-​key with lots of delicious pastries too!

I prefer this place over La Note. Love the cute outdoor patio area. Ordered les oeufs saumon and it was delicious. Their sandwiches made with baguettes are really good too. Definitely coming back to try their salads.

Been here quite a few times. If you want to feel that you are not in Berkeley, even for half an hour, then you should try this place.
There is nothing fascinating about café clem, however everything is yet so simple and decent taste wise. I really like to sit in the patio on a sunny day. Prices are a bit on the higher side and the portions are on the smaller side. I found some of the items hard to pronounce, maybe It’s time to learn French a little.
I like the taste of their baguette, it’s very fresh and chewy! The staff are friendly here, but the service is a bit slow. I recommend the egg salad aioli sandwich which has anchovies in it (it’s a very unique combination).

Many in staff but service very very slow
Only half capacity employees eating while prepping food. Food fair at best

I really really recommend the Les Oeufs Maison! It’s a great place to come for a weekend brunch, and on a sunny day you can sit outside.
If you haven’t tried steam eggs before, you need to come here! The eggs are so soft and fluffy and the roasted tomato that comes on the side is amazing. The bread is really good and the jam that they give you in the little container is tasty! I could have eaten it straight out of the jar (and I might have actually done that).
You will probably be hungry afterward, but it’s only $ 5 and it’s a great excuse to get dessert afterwards. I would love to come back and try the pastries!

The salads are really good, but they’re too expensive. Large parts of the wall menu are needlessly in French – I mean, en Français – but I guess that gives Café Clem some of its Parisian anti-​charm, which is charming in its own way.
It can be annoying to order and wait for your food if there are too many people trying to do the same things. People in Berkeley just don’t understand how to stand without getting in other people’s way and/​or violating other people’s personal space. You also need to be very vociferous about where you are in line, as the employees here don’t pay too much attention and generally just take the order of whoever happens to be standing closest to them and/​or whoever happens to be rudest.
The little patio is lovely. In fact, much of Café Clem’s true Berkeley charm comes from its patio. Who knew it could be pleasant to lunch on Kittredge Street next to the public library? But it is! Unless it’s raining, which it often seems to be when I come here, for some reason.

My favorite dish I’ve ordered from Café Clem is the Oeufs de Saumon. I’m a huge fan of smoked salmon, and they even shape it in a cute rose! The eggs are moist and still slightly runny. The bread they include is also delicious and overall makes for a great brunch. Their sandwiches are cheese, bread, and heavy but still very good. They don’t really include any lettuce tomato etc. They also have a huge assortment of pastries and cookies that look really good. Definitely looking forward to trying those as well.

The food here is continually really, really good. Before going vegan I’d had the eggs with salmon and it was an experience, let me tell you. They steam the eggs so they’re nice and fluffy, and paired with goat cheese… heavenly. Seriously. The salmon was fresh and the plate came with rustic toast and a mini jam, which was cute as hell.
The last time I went here I had a green salad and it was so nicely presented. Cutest salad I’ve ever eaten, and super delicious.
The café drinks are okay. Their espresso based drinks are good, but I’m not a huge fan of their teas/​chai lattes. I do like that they have almond milk and soy, for us dairy-​free/​vegan types/​people who don’t like milk.
The service has always been good. There’s one woman in particular who is awesome, and every time I regret forgetting to ask her name. I have noticed some not so great things in terms of management, though. There’s a laptop free period of time here every day, which is totally fine and kind of nice, but the manager (or the woman who seems to be) comes around and not always nicely tells you to pack up your laptop. I’ve seen her speak down to other employees as well, which is sad to see because the food and service is always so good – maybe give your employees constructive feedback out of sight of customers?
Overall a good spot that I would definitely recommend!

Do you love finding out that a really great eating experience is waiting literally around the corner? We decided to try Café Clem because it was one of the restaurants listed on the Berkeley Restaurant Week. It looked quaint and seemed to have a nice menu which we checked out on line. Today we were in Berkeley and took the opportunity to follow up on our decision. First of all, we were very lucky to find free street parking not too far away. A quick walk and we were inside. It smelled so good that we immediately looked around and on the wall is a very large menu conveniently hung. We chose the Rustic Turkey and a grilled cheese, no tomatoes. We also bought a vanilla cream filled beignet to taste test while waiting for our sandwiches. The beignet was the best I’ve had. I’m not a beignet fan only because the dough tastes a little sour to me and then powder sugar is used to cover up the weirdness. This little beauty was soft, fluffy, excellent texture. It may not hold up to a hard core beignet lover, but I sure liked it. The cream filling was what I would have called a custard. Very, very good. Then our sandwiches were ready. The grilled cheese smelled so good we just got hungry all over again! Thick with cheese. I don’t know what they did to it to make it smell so good, but it tasted even better. And the Turkey sandwich! WTH! So aromatic, fresh, crunchy crusty fluffy bread roll with a mouth full of flavors that just sing. No kidding. They include roasted pepper (yellow) which is just the right amount of another kind of savor that played so well off of the cheeses and complimented the sweet turkey meat.
We will be back. The pastry counter is full of wonderful sweets and savories as well. Quiche in miniature and some other items I’ve forgotten by now, but will be more than happy to go back and refresh my memory.
Nice, clean and small interior. Not much seating area. The outdoors patio does offer more seating. Wonderful staff that are gracious and smile at you even though they are super busy. Be prepared for take out and they do suggest that you do call ahead. This was very much a fun and tasty adventure!

This place is simply lovely: lovely sandwiches, lovely coffee (and lovelier coffee mugs), lovely coffee drinks in ceramic bowls, lovely pastries, lovely atmosphere. Great place to have a casual lunch or snack. It’s European-​quaint, with a good, homey feel. I’ve only been here a few times, but always left feeling sunnier about life — that’s the kind of place it is.
Café Clem also has a lengthy menu of simple dishes made with high quality ingredients. All of the sandwiches I’ve tried have been good, but the egg salad is the surprise star! I really like egg salad, but I know it’s not a popular dish. Do try this one if you are at all amenable to egg salad. It’s a slightly sophisticated take on a simple sandwich that really works.

What I ate: Les Oeufs Lucas
Visit date: November 9, 2014
First time? Yes.
I’ve heard good things from foodie friends about Café Clem so I decided I needed to know what the hype was about. The café is a bit hidden from the busy downtown area; luckily, they have clear signs to point you in their direction. There are a few indoor seats and there is ample outdoor seating. Sitting outside is lovely.
My order took over twenty minutes to arrive. At first I thought they forgot about us. We inquired and the staff responded that the food is «made to order» so it should «be out shortly». I should hope the food is made to order but geez! It’s just oeufs and toast! Also, my friend’s order came out a few minutes after mine. She just ordered a quiche that was already made. She pointed to it in the display case and they just had to warm it up. Apparently the waiter dropped the first quiche and forgot to heat up a new one. One word… How?
But onto the food because that’s what’s most important. I ordered Les Oeufs Lucas — fluffy eggs topped with goat cheese and served with toast and jam. The oeufs were lovely and really were fluffy. Paired with goat cheese — it was like eating little cloud pillows. The jam comes in an individual mini jam jar (adorbs!) and was the perfect jam serving for my two pieces of toast. The serving size was perfect for me cause I wasn’t super hungry, but I could see how someone could still want to eat more after a meal here.
In summary, I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here. But, if you do find yourself here, might I suggest ordering the little cloud pillows?