The wonderings, ponderings and other 'ings' of me. Lifestyle, review, news and opinion posts. Chic with a hint of sarcasm... hopefully!

Saturday 10 March 2018

Review: Urban Larder

When I was a full time freelancer one of the places I loved to go for inspiration was Mill Road, Cambridge’s most multicultural street it holds a special place in the heart of many a local resident.  It also just so happens to house one of the cutest coffee shops we have, Urban Larder.  Set up just over 3 years ago (they had their toddler birthday the other week) this cosy corner has instagram worthy dark wood tables, a counter full of the most glorious pastries and a cheese toasty menu to salivate over.  Here’s the Cool the Quirks and the Que of this particular coffee house:

The Cool
Urban Larder was one of the first places I regularly frequented and I’ve had a soft spot for it ever since, evidently many people feel the same. There’s generally a happy chatter going on between staff and customers and the owner, Duncan, is possibly the friendliest person in town. At least every third customer seems to know him personally and he has time for all of them as well. 

The coffee itself is constantly evolving, from espresso to lattes to pour overs.  Duncan serves it any way you want it, always intense but never burnt he and his merry band of worker bees truly know how to brew. But let’s circle back to those toasties shall we? At one time they had the dubious honour of having my best cheese toasty trophy though now I have to admit there is another equally pleasing contender. Not that Urban Larder have slacked off in their quality, it’s just that The Locker arrived and now matches them for colour, taste and stodgy, gooey goodness!  Lucky Us TWO places to get a cheese toasty fit for a goddess! 

The Quirks
For such a popular place it is extremely small. So much so that on any given Saturday if you are not there before 10am you will struggle to find a seat.  Its also pretty popular with young families so there is quite a bit of noise when the kids (and sometimes the adults) start playing with the Lego boxes on all tables. Not the place to go for a little piece & quiet or to work. It also has one of the tiniest public bathrooms I’ve ever visited. You can barely turn around to get some paper without knocking your elbow on the wall. Not ideal.  

The Que?
Some oddities I’m still trying to work out is why they don’t seem to like loyalty cards? While I have it on good authority they do use them when I approached Urban Larder to chat about these fabulous free coffee cards for a Barista Magazine article, I was met with unease and reluctance and I’m still not sure why.  

Another question I had is with so many Cambridge roasters like Silver Oak Coffee and Hot Numbers why they go to Butterworth & Son, a Suffolk roaster, for their coffee beans? However the lovely larder people (Duncan I'm assuming!) were only too happy to answer this saying on Twitter "Just wanted to distinguish ourselves". He goes on "Butterworths are from where I grew up and they're blooming lovely people on top of all that.... oh and their coffee tastes pretty good too! 😊".

Typically friendly chat eh?


So it’s tiny but it’s lovely. It’s noisy but its friendly and above all it sells a damn fine cup of coffee!

Have you been to Urban Larder yet? 

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2 comments

Naomi said...

I love their coffee! Nice to have variety in Cambridge .

TmS said...

Coffee shops are one thing Cambridge does exceptionally well!

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