Giraffe

Good restaurant within the Trafford Centre. Not too extortionately priced.
The waitress we had was tremendous had lots of flirty banter which lived up to the sort of vibe the restaurant gave off.
The bar was fantastic and perhaps a bit wasted in a restaurant.
The menu is average although all three of us thoroughly enjoyed our food we chose. Would recommend.

I have been here quite a few times and it’s something quick wash and tasty.
My partner has just got a hi life card do we decided to go in as we get 2 4 1 on food I had spaghetti bolognaise it was really nice couldn’t fault it for the place it’s there interpretation of the meal not quite the same as going to an Italian.
The place is nice and bright and the staff were friendly enough.
The only down side is they put a 10% survice charge on our bill I understand when there is a big group but for two people I aways leave a tip so its quite annoying for them to tell you how much to leave.
Overall quite a nice experience.

As a new Hi-​Life card member I was looking for somewhere in the Trafford Centre for a bit of lunch. Giraffe was listed so decided to try it out. I tried the Mexican burger which was ok. Not the best i’ve ever had but still very tasty. At full price (about £11.50) I feel it is very expensive for what you get. For 2 burgers and 2 cokes even with the hi-​life card was £20 including a tip.
One thing which bugged me though is they added a 10% service charge even though there was only 2 of us… I will always tip for good service but feel that they pressure you into doing it here. For this reason I am only giving them 3 stars even though my experience was very good overall.

I haven’t been here before, so we popped in to get a quick bit of lunch whilst we were in the middle of Christmas shopping. The décor is bright, fresh, and spacious. I particularly loved the Christmas Tree made from their menus.
Speaking of menus, the actual offerings look delicious, from the foods to the drinks, and we had real trouble deciding what we wanted. Phil R went for a chorizo pasta dish which he thoroughly enjoyed, and I went for a cheeseburger meal. When offered fries, I had the option of choosing sweet potato fries, which I love, and I’m happy to say that Giraffe do sweet potato fries PERFECTLY! They’re crisp and melt in your mouth. The burger was also juicy and tasty.
It was only a quick visit, but from the quality of the food, variety and temptation of the menu offerings, and the swift and cheerful service from the young and friendly staff, we’ll definitely be considering Giraffe again when we’re next in The Trafford Centre, and perhaps if we see one about elsewhere!

Giraffe is pretty hard to define. It’s not really Italian, American, Asian. It’s more a fusion of a variety of different foods. The menu varies from burgers to salads, schnitzel to peri peri chicken, Italian pasta to Asian noodles.
Three of us went, I had the king prawn linguine, and my friends had the chicken and avocado club sandwich and a chicken prawn and mango salad. All three of us were really surprised, great quality food, fresh produce, full of flavour and spot on portion sizes. They also have a great selection of smoothies, juices, homemade lemonade etc.
On a Tuesday they have a burger deal where I think it’s ridiculously cheap at only £6.99. Their burgers are massive! We were there on a Tuesday and plenty of people around us were ordering them and they looked brilliant.
I would definitely go back here and recommend this restaurant as Giraffe is great if you can’t all decide what you want to eat !!

This place does amazing smoothies! With good stuff like green tea!
And the teapots! It feels like you’ve gone to an Aztec world with the tea pots!
(Just be careful as they get VERY hot being metal…)
It’s not the most exciting menu but I’ve been here twice. For brunch and for dinner.
Brunch;
It’s fairly quiet at this time!
The staff are lovely and very willing to help you by recommendations.
We were there for a good breakfast and that’s what we got.
Eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms etc. Nicely cooked and not greasy.
I opted for a smoothie too, a breakfast wake up type which was lovely :)
(see my picture of the green one!)
The pot of tea came in this amazing little thick metal pot, which again came on a metal raiser with a metal handle to pour. When it came to pouring the second cup from it, I didn’t think and didn’t protect my hand with a napkin and it was quite hot. Be careful with these.
Dinner;
Not overrun, but not quiet either. It didn’t affect the service for us and we were checked on frequently.
I ordered a medium rare steak which came medium done. It wasn’t tough and still had quite a lot of flavour. The plate size and portions with it of chips and coleslaw were generous and it felt right for the price.
This place didn’t make me go «mmmmmmm» or «wow» because it felt very chain like. The place has no feel to it. It may be because of where it has been slotted in to the Trafford Centre food court though. The tables and chairs are small and not very comfy which means your stay is shortened by this thought throughout your meal.
Not much gluten-​free choice, you have to scramble it together yourself and ask the waiter/​waitress nicely to not put certain things on and if you can swap others. The staff were nice about it when I visited though.

Good restaurant this in the Trafford Centre. Very competitive prices, compared to the other over-​priced restaurants available around the huge complex, offering high-​quality food with an alright range of food available. For those who are students, including me, the 25% discount on Monday to Thursday make it quite attractive to those who find themselves peckish whilst shopping around.

Clearly, this have taken a turn for the worst since the first two reviews in 2010. The third account seems much more likely based on my experience today.
I don’t like chains but there really is no way around it at the Trafford Centre. Every restaurant I’ve been to there has been extremely disappointing. Giraffe was no different. We went in because it was the least crowded. We stood patiently at the ‘please wait to be seated’ sign as several employees ignored our presence at the entrance. It was mostly empty so I couldn’t understand why no one would come over to seat us. Finally we were given a seat and looked over the menu.
About 20 minutes went by before the waiter came back to take our order. Nothing fancy or time consuming, mind you… a hot dog & fries from the children’s menu for my son, a grilled chicken sandwich for me and Parmesan chicken Kiev for my husband with a shared starter of nachos.
Being from the States, I had my idea of what nachos would be. They are generally hot, with melted cheese and tomato, peppers, sour cream and guacamole. Again, nothing fancy here but somehow it still took at least 20 minutes for them to come out. What was more mind boggling was the entire dish was cold. The nachos were cold, the shredded cheese was cold, the (obviously straight-​from-​a-​can) corn was cold… not at all what it sounded like on the menu. My son wouldn’t eat any, but it wasn’t a large portion at all (sharing platter???) so it was gone fairly fast.
We sat thinking our main would be along any minute. How wrong we were. As we sat waiting, we looked around to see why the food could be taking so long. Surely there was a large party somewhere that was taking up the kitchen’s time. But what we noticed was there seemed to be far more staff walking around than there were customers. A lot more. It took so long my 9 year old was almost crying because he was so hungry. 45 minutes after the nachos were finished, the food arrived.
I was SHOCKED to see the amount of food on my son’s plate, which was ordered from the children’s menu. The hot dog was a ridiculous size… about 11 inches long and 2 inches high. It was served on an equally large bun, although that was very VERY stale. And there was a large portion of fries with it. Ironically, I had a small ‘cup’ of fries served with my sandwich, which looked like it would be impossible to eat because it was about 10 inches high. I quickly realised the bulk of it was 90% lettuce which made it look mahoosive. Once the lettuce was removed, it was ordinary size.
My first bite was a bit of a shock because it didn’t taste like chicken at all. In fact, I stopped chewing and lifted the top off the bun to double check. It was indeed chicken, but smothered in greasy cold sauteed onions, slimey mushrooms and a BBQ sauce with no taste. The bun was stale as well. It had a total lack of taste and a very odd consistency. It was clear the chicken breast was of the frozen, processed variety. All the salt & pepper in the world couldn’t help it.
Hubby’s chicken actually smelled very very garlicky… which made me a little jealous because at least his would taste like something. I was wrong. He said his had the same lack of taste. His was supposed to be Kiev, but it was just a strange green pesto-​looking sauce splattered on top of the same kind of frozen, processed chicken breast as my sandwich. There was a lump of mashed potatoes and mounds of lettuce and a half of a lemon.
I felt bad that we took my hubby here for his Father’s Day lunch. We sat underwhelmed at how we had spent the last 75 minutes… until we got the bill. It was just shy of £50 (about $ 80). Mind you, my son drank plain water, I had sparking water and hubs had Red Stripe beer. No desserts, no salads, no bottles of wine… just the one shared lame starter and our terrible mains. I was recently out in London with 3 guests at a great tapas place where we shared about 6 plates and had a bottle of wonderful wine and it cost about the same.
Needless to say, not only will I never go to this Giraffe, but I will never trust ANY Giraffe because there is no reason to expect the standards to be any better if they can’t get it right here. Nor will I eat at any of the places in the Trafford Centre. That’s the third horrible meal in three different places there. Now all I can hope is that we haven’t been poisoned like the reviewer before me, although I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we have been.

Update: 30 hours after eating at Giraffe (see my earlier review), I suffered a major stomach upset which left me flat on my back and unable to keep anything down for a couple of days. Which is totally unlike me, and as the rest of my diet that week was my usual home-​cooked food, I’m suspicious it was my meal at Giraffe that caused the problem. Maybe I was unlucky, and maybe even Giraffe wasn’t the cause, but this is my 2 cents worth — one star.

Arranging a get together with old school friends can be a nightmare! One likes Chinese, one prefers something spicy, another is on the Atkins diet and can only have a burger! My solution was to take the difficult madams to Giraffe in the Trafford Centre and then everybody would be happy. It is a breath of fresh air to visit a restaurant that celebrates the fact that we are one world and rather than segregating the food industry into separate cultures and nationalities, Giraffe goes global and has a little bit of everything from each continent.
Atkins girl had a huge burger called «The Big Greek» (Ooo er!).It was made from grilled lamb and roasted red pepper (very healthy), and feta cheese and relish (not so healthy) which she absolutely loved. Spicy girl stuffed her face with the peri peri chicken and fries, which she still tipped a bottle of tabasco over and I had the thai duck stir fry which I can honestly say was one of the nicest meals I have ever tasted.
The service here was good, although I am sure we embarrassed the poor waiter with talk of menstrual cycles and mastitis. We didn’t have to book because this Giraffe is never busy. I will definitely go back to enjoy the «Giraffe Time menu» which serves a starter and a main for only £7.50 although the portions here are so large, I am not sure I can handle both. Giraffe is great for kids and runs children’s parties and it is the perfect place for an old girl’s reunion, Atkins addicts are welcome.

I want to be able to slate this restaurant, given that it’s a chain and that it’s located in the food court of the Trafford centre, but Giraffe still manages to pull it off. The portions are generous, the ingredients are fresh, the service is friendly (something that’s of particular importance in a shopping centre because mostly you dine just to refill and continue) and fast and the price is right.
The menu covers a number of cuisines, from Mexican, Vietnamese to Jamaican so you won’t be stuck for choice. Try the Farmers Market Vegetable Burrito (roasted squash, feta, spinach, celery, mushrooms, kidney beans & Mexican green rice wrapped in a soft tortilla with melted cheddar, adobe sauce & a crunchy salad of mixed leaves, green onion & radish) for £8.95.
Or the Grilled Half Chicken ‘Portugese’ style (peri peri grilled chicken with a choice of skin on fries, garden salad or herby rice, all served with homemade slaw). Most dishes are so devastating that if you’re not all that hungry I’d suggest you share. lastly, a great selection of world beers, wines and coffees make this a winning formula for retail respite.

This is a lovely place to meet and eat. The potato wedges are scrummy and they do a lovely breakfast and pancakes too!

Food was very good — small helpings but very tasty. The Tunisian waiter was very charming. Nice surroundings and no one rushing to move you on even though the place was really busy. Only one complaint was there appeared to be three gents toilets and only one for females! couldn’t quite work that one out.

I really like this place. I am a recent convert but since my first encounter, have returned many times. I visited the restaurant with friends because we had 2for1 vouchers! None of us had eaten there before so thought we would give it a go. From the minute we walked in, we were impressed. The staff were friendly and welcoming without being pushy. We were then pleasantly surprised at the varied menu. There was lots of wonderful choices and I really was stuck! I eventually chose a chicken and chorizo burger which was amazing. My friends chose the ribs, duck stir fry and a falafel burger and we were all impressed. Great value for money and well worth a visit!

This is a great restaurant — my eldest son and I have a treat there every school holiday, everything we have eaten is great, he is a hige fan of their sausage and mash and I love the falafel burger — yum! There are some nice unusual things on the menu like the endamame beans. The environment is welcoming and friendly and the staff a busy but efficient.

Giraffe has a fantastic menu and some good 241 deals are around too. Unfortunately the service in TC has not been the best.

Giraffe is a funky restaurant which is locate upstairs in the trafford centre. They serve a range of food including burgers! They often have great offers if you sign up on there website. definately worth a visit.

A chain of restaurant based on the concept that food shall be delivered for the customer’s grazing pleasure in a smiley, happy environment, free of pretension. A bit like McDonald’s but without the sinister clown connotations and health hazards.
With its slogan of Love Eat Live it captures perfectly its’ peppy philosophy, slaps you on the back of the head with it, and smiles at you whilst serving you a whole array of dishes.
A reminder, that in these times of credit crunches and wars, there are small corners of the earth, however commercially composed, that don’t take themselves too seriously and can still provide a truly friendly service for doing so. The old adage service with a smile is perfectly applicable here.
A place for families, couples or lonely individuals (hey, they need feeding too) to eat in a warm, funky joint.
Prices are reasonable, service is speedy and the burgers are delicious.

Surprisingly decent ‘chain’ (by all accounts the owners aren’t too keen on this tag) in the cathedral to commercialism that is the Trafford Centre.
Bit of a mixed bag of food for thought this one: enchilada’s engage with parmesan ‘crumbed’ (?) chicken schnitzels; pizza’s with hot Thai duck stir frys; rib eyed steaks with a large collection of burgers (I usually aim my face towards the Mexican burger). Quite a fun menu really especially as it’s trajectory is pointed towards families and kids.
I tend to ‘survive’ the Trafford Centre once or twice a year, but they’ve opened a 3^rd Giraffe branch in Spinningfields so this weekend, being my daughters birthday and being ‘informed’ that she would like to return here, we’ll be visiting the other branch. Thankfully the interiors are well thought out so it’s a good all rounder (I can think of far, far worse places that usually cater for kids and families. Besides, with Cruzcampo, Brooklyn beer and Red Stripe waiting in the wings, the experience is rounded off nicely.
There is a whole host of naughty looking desserts should you be that way inclinedI tend to carry a spare spoon and pinch bits of warm pecan pie from the missus
Just make sure the staff give out some of those bl**dy giraffe stirrers otherwise you’ll never hear the last of it.

Giraffe is a fun, family friendly restaurant in The Trafford Centre.
The menu is extremely varied, ranging from Asian influences (Endamame Beans and Red Thai Curry) to Mexican (Burritos) to your everyday favourites (Burger & Steak!).
They also have a great range of smoothies, and hot drinks (I love the Noisette drink; an espresso shot with nut syrup).
It is good fun for Children, especially when they get the giraffe stirring sticks, and the meals are good hearty dishes that leave you nicely full. I like they way they give you a big rack of condiments to use to your hearts content and the special menu (Between 2pm — 5pm, Mon-​Thurs) is fantastic value, and a good way to try it out.