When a bar closes, it leaves you orphaned. You remain in limbo, unmoored, drifting from one establishment to the next that never quite fits. Too fancy. Too loud. Too pretentious. Inconsistent service. Or worse - it simply doesn't understand your inherent needs. What you want, what you have always wanted, is a bar that feels like drinking at home without actually feeling like you are at home. That precise calibration is rarer than it sounds.
I stumbled onto Coco's Bar on Moringa Grove, Kilimani, by pure happenstance. I was meeting a friend who was meeting three friends of his at Bab Al Yemen, a Yemeni restaurant nearby, for dinner.
They do this weekly - a different restaurant each time, same group of men, talking about their week, whatever someone is carrying, whatever needs saying. The Yemeni food was excellent. The karak chai was not. Music drifted in from Oyster Bar next door, doing what good music from next door does - making you want to be somewhere else.
After dinner, someone suggested drinks at the new bar in the parking area. That is how these things happen. Not by design, but by whimsical needs.
Coco's is small. Intentionally so, it seems. Matt black interior, warm enough lighting, a decent bar that doesn't try too hard. Faith, the proprietor, moved from table to table greeting everyone with the ease of someone who has decided that hospitality is not a job but a disposition. She eventually sat with us and held court.
The bar felt immediately familiar, like a place I had been before. It reminded me of Explorer Bar — same energy, same crowd- sort of. Late thirties to early forties. Mature. Like the music. But their greatest trick is the food. The meats, specifically, are extraordinary.
