Review 4: Nutters

1 atmosphere                                       ****

2 the food & drink                              ***

3 price                                                 ***

4 hospitality                                       ***½

5 reading potential                             *****

6 clientele                                            ***

7 location                                            ****

8 busy-ness                                          ****

9 professionalism                                ***

Ah, Nutters – café that launched a thousand chapters.  Without doubt the best place in town if you just want to sit over a pot or two of tea and read.  And a strong candidate for the best setting, too – through a small alley in Church Street (something of a small alley in itself) which leads, if you can navigate your way through the wizards and owls, to a very small courtyard-type-thing, onto which a few small premises (including Nutters) look – the kind of shops that sell quirky clay pigs and dream catchers. 

The café itself manages to maintain this almost Parisian style (well, in warmer periods a couple of tables are put in the courtyard).  It is very small, but does not feel cramped for being so - perhaps because the wall and door facing the courtyard are glass.  The décor is tasteful, and the premises is blissfully fume-free.  The staff are perfectly friendly, and for now manage to escape my blundering stereotyping. 

Here comes the reading potential bit – concentrate!  For some reason which escapes me, the number of people who know about Nutters seems to be in single figures.  As such, it’s usually really very quiet, and one can sit there for a long time reading without feeling pressured to move on (although it’s only fair to top up every now & again).  Combine this with its location and atmosphere and you’re on to a winner.  That’s the real trick, ain’t it, and it’s gonna cost you a little extra – or is it? 

Well, to exploit this reading potential necessitates sitting on Nutters Chairs, which are sold on contract to most western armies for tank armour.  They’re the least buttock-friendly accessories since pirate king Iron Tom Rackham ordered 300 tavern stools with the legs on the wrong side.  You may not be able to order a helpful whisky, but the coffee will probably have the same effect – it certainly tastes as if it’s 12 years old and has been mellowing in oak caskets.  A small hyperbole, perhaps, but for the same price the Moka Bar will turn your eyes blue.  But that’s about as far as drawbacks go – and the cakes are very nice. 

Overall, a ****.  There’s something I can’t quite articulate which is preventing me from giving a four-and-a-half or five – it may be that the café is too quiet.  When you go to somewhere like the Moka Bar or Ascaris, the large numbers of customers create an almost cosmopolitan sense of excitement – through the background chatter, etc.  But if you want that you go to a busy café, and if you want a more peaceful cuppa, go to Nutters.