Café Vagabond (N4 3SG)

8 Osborne Road, Unit 20 Charter Court Stroud Green Road N4 3SG
@VagabondN4

There are not too many cafes one can go to where the all-male waiting staff yell “I said TABLE 2, goddamnit” to each other, and the customers all laugh heartily at the banter. Café Vagabond is such a place.

It is trés casual, trés minimal and trés busy. The cake selection is relatively minimal, so probably not the best place to come if you’re after frilly heavily-iced delights. 

I thought that 5 people working behind the counter was slight over-kill for such a tiny place. This ratio worked out to about 1 staff member per 4 or 5 customers which is far too many.

The raisin bread was good according to Ben and since it cost only £1 it’s hardly worth critiquing. He declared the coffee as “fine”.

I had carrot cake, and it was passable. Not brilliant, but satisfactory. It was inexpensive. The tea, however, was very good. Aromatic and flavoursome… and given I’m generally a fairly undiscerning tea drinker that’s quite a compliment coming from me. I regret not asking them what blend they used. 

I don't know these people.

This café feels slightly clandestine for some reason, like it would be a great venue for plotting a resistance. Or maybe writing a historical novel. 

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Fat Cat Cafe (N16 0UD)

119 Church Street, Stoke Newington, N16 0UD 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fat-Cat-Cafe/170705029747470 

Rumours abound that the internet is full of cats. I don’t have a problem with this. I love cats. I have even been called a “crazy cat lady” in the past. So there was no way that I could pass up a visit to a cat-themed café. 

And since I discovered the coolness of Stoke Newington (aka Stokie) there was even more reason to head back to this area.

Fat Cat is very understated, with minimal lighting, a bevy of tables crushed together elbow to elbow, with a teeny tiny serving counter at the back. Getting even close to the counter holds the risk of accidentally sitting on another customer’s lap. No matter; we’re all friends here.

What the counter holds is, ultimately, the most important thing… an assortment of whopping great big cakes. I was hard pressed to choose which one I wanted, as they all sounded (and looked) incredible. I resisted the temptation to order two for myself, which turned out to be a wise move.

I ordered the chocolate Guinness cake and was a happy kitty indeed when presented with a HUGE slice. I’ve sampled chocolate Guinness cake elsewhere, but Fat Cat wins hands down. 

It was rich, it was moist, it was lush, it was covered in icing, it was beautiful. It completed me.

Chokkie G and friends

Ben’s spiced apple cake was also delicious, but I only had eyes for the mac daddy Chokkie G.

After my visit here I left feeling like the (fat) cat that got the cream cake. 

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Bienvenue Café (N16 7NY)

110 Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16 7NY
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bienvenue/528732347220672

Willkommen, bienvenue and welcome to Bienvenue café.

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I was going to come here after I spotted their window display. For what could be better than a large selection of slices of cake? A large collection of individual mini cakes, that’s what.

I was hard pressed to make a decision because they all looked so delectable.

So I stuck with my trusty favourite, carrot cake.

I did have a moment of cake envy however, when Ben’s apple crumble mini cake came served with his own mini pot of custard. 

After he saw my crestfallen expression he generously allowed me to snaffle some of the custard for my carrot cake, so I was appeased and harmony was restored.

The café is huge, probably to accommodate the on-site bakery. All the cakes are made on the premises, as well as a selection of breads and other goodies.

The cafe could use a bit more pizzazz (queue jazz hands) as the décor is rather Spartan and the space comes across as rather bare and lacking in personality. 

The owners did turn on some music during our visit, but this seemed more of an after-thought, and the silence in between hung awkwardly in the air.

 

Bienvenue only opened early October, so I assume these touches are a work in progress. 

 

Ben recommends giving the coffee a pass as it’s is “very average” (perhaps some training is in order?).

You will certainly get a warm welcome from the staff at Bienvenue – they were absolutely lovely.

If you think life is a cabaret, come taste the cake, your table's waiting.

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Lamingtons (RH1 4PA)

Lamingtons
High Street, Bletchingley, Surrey RH1 4PA

 I love a good country tea room. Unfortunately they are in short supply. To clarify… there are plenty of country tea rooms, just few good ones.

And for those who don’t know what a Lamington is, it’s an Australian dessert featuring a square of sponge cake coated in a layer of chocolate icing and desiccated coconut. I think they’re disgusting and I avoid them like the plague.

So it was a pleasure to visit Lamingtons and find that (1) it is one of the few good country tea rooms out there and (2) they did not serve their unfortunate namesake.

What I found instead was an utterly gorgeous gift shop and café, filled with delectable home-baked cakes, an assortment of Charbonnel-et-Walker chocolates and pretty trinkets for the home.

The service was very slow, but I didn’t mind. Unlike many cafes I’ve been to that are clearly over-staffed (sometimes with more staff than customers!), this was clearly a one- or two-man show. 

 

Freshly baked every day

To bake all those cakes every day and then run the shop takes a lot of time and effort, so I could forgive them for keeping us waiting, particularly as the service was exceedingly polite and friendly.

And in any case, it was a pleasure to wait in such beautiful surroundings. If I rated cafes solely on décor, Lamingtons would get 11 out of 10.

My slice of chocolate cake was very good; moist, with chunks of chocolate. Ben’s brownie was served slightly warm, so the chocolate icing on top oozed a little in your mouth. I loved the crockery too. The only let down was Ben’s rather average coffee.

So if you’re a fan of rare breeds, then get yourself out into the countryside and treat yourself to a Lamington.

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Juliet's (TN1 1XF)

54 High St, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1XF 

http://julietsandmore.com/ 

What drew me into Juliet’s was the tallest, largest slice of Victoria Sponge cake I’ve ever seen, presented on a high pedestal in the window display. I am personally not a fan of Victoria Sponge, but I am a fan of large slices of cake, so my visit to this café was a fait accompli.

Juliet’s is located on the very upper class High Street in Royal Tunbridge Wells, a short walk from the Pantiles. If you’re in the market for high end estate jewellery, this is the place to come. The café is hugely popular, and the flow of customers did not let up during the time we were there.

Monster cake

Finding a free table required a bit of clever manoeuvring, but we managed it in the end and squashed ourselves into a corner table with barely enough room to breathe. 

It was only at the conclusion of our visit, when I ventured upstairs to use the amenities, that I discovered an upstairs seating area, complete with another cake and coffee counter that replicated the one downstairs! 

So don’t despair if there are no available seats downstairs. You won’t have to resort to stand-over tactics to hurry people out. Not that I would ever do something like that. Honestly!

Tea is served in marvelous tea pots; mine was so huge that I could not drink the 5^th cup of tea that it would have yielded. As it was, our drive back to London necessitated a “comfort break” after the 3 cups I downed. Stingy they ain’t.

My slice of cake was comparatively modest (size-wise) in comparison, but very enjoyable. Ben’s banana loaf was nicely topped with icing embedded with crunchy banana pieces.

There are good cafes and then there are great cafes, and Juliet’s is one to aspire to.

And if you think you could never be scared of a slice of cake, then you’ve not seen their sponge.

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