Out & About Spring 2018

FOOD & DRINK

Café culture

Independent cafés are thriving, offering a welcome alternative to the high street chains. These popular meeting places provide individuality, as well as homemade, healthy treats. So here are some suggestions, next time you want somewhere to meet for a coffee and chat

Honesty 17 High St, Lambourn, Hungerford RG17 8XL Phone: 01488 71011 Open 8am until 4pm every day. www.coffeeshops.honestygroup.co.uk/honesty-lambourn/ T he shop sells cooked breakfasts in the morning and hot lunches in the afternoon, along with all the Honesty favourites like the French pastries, biscuits, cakes, sandwiches, wraps and panini. All the food is made either in Honesty’s wholesale kitchen or bakery and then delivered first thing in the morning. Making a success of the coffee shop in Lambourn really is about engaging with the local community and making sure that everyone who lives in Lambourn and in the surrounding villages knows they are there. Lambourn is, of course, well known as the Valley of the Racehorse, being home to many trainers and breeders and they stop at the café for a hot breakfast or a lunch. The Honesty café also attracts a lot of young mums with their children, with plenty of space for prams. It’s also a good stopping point for cyclists. Honesty is a great supporter of cycling, which fits in with their ethos of eating and living well. You will find the Honesty café on the High Street, next to the old police station. Honesty also runs coffee shops in Hungerford, Kingsclere and Inkpen, with the café at Houghton Lodge, Stockbridge, soon to reopen in April, and a new café in Overton also opening soon.

Eliane High Street, The Courtyard, Hungerford RG17 0NF T: 01488 686 100 www.elianesmiles.com ‘A happy place to meet and eat’ is Eliane’s strapline T he brainchild of Rafia Willmot and Mark Kimchi, Eliane opened in 2014. Following Rafia’s husband John’s cancer diagnosis in 2010, Rafia decided to alter her family’s dietary eating habits. Having met and consulted with Mark – a researcher into corrective diet for diseases – she and John radically changed the way that John ate. So, said Rafia: “We are organic wherever possible and as much as possible. We specialise in allergen-sensitive fare and offer something for everyone. As a result, you can be sure your lunch dish, cake, quiche, tart, cookie or croissant, baguette, brioche, flapjack or figgy pudding will be lower in cholesterol too.” All the food is homemade on site and Eliane is a 100-per- cent non-Genetically Modified zone too, preferring to use local suppliers. Expect colourful and pretty as well as tasty food – a zingy spring salad with green beans and jicama, for example, or Persian rice with herbs and roasted vegetables. You will find meat and fish dishes, but at Eliane they prefer to use a wide variation of organic vegetables and legumes (red kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, soya beans, adzuki beans, cannellini beans). And instead of refined sugar in the cakes and sweet eats, organic coconut, palm sugar, dates, agave syrup, raw coconut nectar and stevia, is substituted. 

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