Lush Somerset cafe is the perfect antidote to the January Blues
I'm going to let you in on a little trade secret. A bit of Journalism 101, if you will. Reporters are not supposed to photograph you without your permission in any place where you have a 'reasonable expectation of privacy'.
The street is fine. A toilet is not. A beach is fine. A place of worship is not. A celebrity midway through jumping off a private yacht into the very public ocean is apparently one of those fun grey areas.
A restaurant is not a grey area: you rightly have a reasonable expectation of privacy while you're tackling your quesadilla. Nobody wants to turn on the evening news and see footage of themselves shovelling a hotdog down their gullet in the background.
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I bring this up because in some ways, it's a shame I couldn't capture just how busy and vibrant The Green House was on a dreary January afternoon earlier this week. The café, painted with emerald and seafoam greens and teeming with indoor plants, was alive with the hum of conversation.
The Green House, which sits beckoningly close to Weston-Super-Mare's sea front, was as busy on a Monday afternoon in the most dismal month of the year as I might have expected on a Friday night. As I didn't want to annoy anyone by asking if I could photograph them in the middle of a hot date/heart-to-heart with an old friend/solitary moment of reflection on what I am sure is a rich and textured inner-life, you'll just have to take my word for it.
True to its name, the viridescence of The Green House reminded me of a much-yearned for spring. Just outside the restaurant is a beguiling public garden with a water feature and ivy-covered columns propping up a charming pergola.
And after encountering nothing but grey skies all day, the verdant décor inside The Green House seemed to bring me back to life. There was even a wall of moss flourishing behind the ice cream freezer.
Perhaps this is an odd sentiment for a food critic, but I truly believe the atmosphere of a café is as important as the food itself. In that sense, The Green House is the perfect antidote to the January Blues sapping away our energy. But what of the food?
I ordered the soft goat's cheese with rye crispbread and a side of salad for £10.25. It arrived promptly and with excellent service. The meal itself was served completely cold. The goat's cheese was rich, creamy and topped with diminutive bacon flakes. Paired with the rye, the ingredients seemed to balance each other out nicely.
Onto the salad. There was a mustard dressing, but I'm afraid it was applied a little sparingly for my tastes. It wasn't enough to cover most of the celery, carrots, red peppers or leaves. As for the salad itself, I might have liked to have seen it julienned. Eating long, thick sticks of celery without much in the way of dressing was a strange experience.
At the end of my meal, I found myself musing that I might have liked it better if it had actually been spring. I imagined myself sojourning at The Green House after a long swim in the bay, sea salt in my hair and skin flushed from the warm May sun. Then, a light, cold meal to refresh my senses.
As it happened, it was an unforgivingly grey day in January and as I left I found I was still hungry. I would still recommend The Green House for its atmosphere and the lovely service. But I'd delay ordering the goat's cheese until the first daffodils have popped up, or better yet, when the outside world is as green and lush as the restaurant itself.
The Green House is open from 8.30am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday. On Sundays it is open from 10am to 3pm.