Review 9: North Point café, St Andrews

Alas, there is not an area of Hereford called St Andrews.  Said place is, quite rightly, in Scotland.  I travelled up there recently to celebrate the birth of Toby of St Andrews, and while there, thought I would try out one of their fabulous-looking cafés.  Is this constitutionally acceptable?  It is now. 

Now I am in a generous mood, so I think I shall digress a little & describe my impressions of St Andrews.  Having spent many an hour on the roof of a carriage steaming north, I arrived in what seems to me to be the Scottish equivalent of Bath.  It has that same dumbfounding charm to it – a small and intimate town with acres of beautiful architecture, many of the buildings seemingly made of the same stone.  The only eyesore to be found was the University library, but since all Uni libraries across Britain seem to have been designed by the same group of blind orang-utans, that’s hardly St Andrews’ fault. 

Points of interest in St A:

v     the golf course & all the golf-oriented shops.  Despite what my fascistic friends say, it’s a fine game.  Vive! 

v     a large beach, where apparently they filmed some famous scene from Chariots of Fire; more interestingly, it seems to be home to some curious species of little sand creature which burrows to the surface, leaving little squiggly piles of sand to the side – maybe there are little Fremen down there, too. 

v     one of Sean Connery’s houses, whose location is a bit hush hush

v     an aquarium, at the back of which can be spotted seals who seem to be on perpetual fag breaks – they just lie on a rock doing nothing, lazy buggers

v     the cliff where they threw witches into the sea, having first chained their thumbs to their ankles.  Charming. 

While this fact might suggest St Andrews has a fine Christian tradition, the opposite seems to be the case (despite its name).  I don’t know if they were inspired into anti-church revolution by The Wickerman or something, but I struggled to find a single church standing in the whole town – apart from the one they used as a base to catapult witches out to sea.  There were plenty of burnt-out church ruins, and I think the site of the (former) cathedral must have been a testing ground for primitive thermo-nuclear devices – I still haven’t worked out what happened to it (maybe they used to attach witches to rockets and launch them into the North Sea, until something went wrong). 

But I don’t want to give the wrong impression.  St Andrewsians are really lovely people (although Field Marshall Haig & I nearly got mugged), and the accents of 66.6 % of them are delightful.  The other 33.3% are University students (with diverse accents).  Ok, digression over – on to the review. 

1 atmosphere                             ****

2 the food & drink                       ****

3 price                                       ** ½

4 hospitality                               ***

5 reading potential                      **

6 clientele                                  *** ½

7 location                                   er …

8 busy-ness                                ***

9 professionalism                        ****

This review was carried out by myself, the Field Marshall, and a newcomer – Iracema.  Actually we only just managed to get in – the streets were being patrolled by squadrons of Sloane Rangers, so the Field Marshall had to blow up a church to distract them while we snuck in.  Indeed, I’ve only ever seen more sloanes in Bristol.  To what degree they’re an accurate reflection of the average St Andrewsian, or to what they’re simply part of Prince William’s indirect entourage, I don’t know – more the latter, I suspect. 

Much like St Andrews, Northpoint café is clean, aesthetically pleasing, and rather trendy.  The interior decoration is brilliant – the walls are in rich blues and reds and sport snazzy handbags hanging from ropes, as well as crazy curvy mirrors.  Oil paintings are to be found spaced tastefully around.  The floor is planked, and the furniture is solidly and trendily wooden, if not a little uncomfortable.  Said factors combined, the overall effect is not a little maritime (more Greek yacht than Russian tanker, obviously).  Fitting then, I suppose, that there is only one plant. 

Now, this café has energy, evident not only in its waitresses - who ricochet off the walls around you – but, perhaps more importantly, in its schemes. 

demands a notice on the wall.  The answer follows:

Damnit, sir,  I applaud this initiative!  And said drinks are good, too!  I had The Malteser – hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream, topped with Maltesers, for £1.95.  Whoa Nelly! 

So, what’s wrong with it?  Well, When I am king / the person in charge of the radio there / will be first against the wall.  It is a violation of human rights to have to drink a Malteser to the sound of S Club 7, not to mention the rest of the tripe that tasteless wireless vomited out.  But that’s about it, apart from personal preference.  Such fashionableness is by definition contrived, which is not everyone’s cup of tea (I can’t believe that line hasn’t made it into a review yet).  And of course the reading potential in such a place is pretty slim outside of off-peak times. 

But overall (****) I liked it.  North Point echoes much of St Andrews’ character and vibrancy.  While we were seated some young chap in a red University gown walked in, fresh either from the chapel service or the pier walk which traditionally follows it.  And while the café’s engagement with the contemporary is, for example, well reflected in its overt affiliation with FairTrade, as Iracema pointed out, it is still welcoming to all ages – toddlers, teenagers, and “geriatrics straight out of Chelsea”.  Just don’t go in wearing tie dye and expecting to escape with your life.