Cafe Curio

Bridge Street, Berwick upon Tweed

visited 27/02/09

OK, so Berwick isn't in Scotland, but it used to be, and that's good enough for me.

I was here for the weekend and had a tipoff about Cafe Curio. It's a slightly mysterious place with no website and the owner of the B&B (The Old Vicarage: recommended) we stayed at made the booking so I didn't really know what to expect. Things did not immediately become clearer--Cafe Curio is part restaurant part antique shop, and the only menu I saw was for lunch. You go in and the charming American owner asks you if you want red or white wine (ask to to see them: there's only 2 of each and they don't know much about them). We had a bottle of Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon from M&S which was a perfectly reasonable choice.

Now it all gets slightly magical. A starter of crab with a cheese vol au vent arrives: a perfect concoction of fresh crab and the lightest vol au vent I have ever had with a sharp, but balanced cheddar. Then a broccoli and cheese soup in which each ingredient was clear but harmonious (I don't normally like cheese soups but this was an exception). Cafe Curio subscribes to the slow food movement and this was much in evidence at the next stage--a range of small dishes of slowly prepared stews and braises of fantastic depth of flavour. Outstanding among these was a simple dish of pork and big chunks of local carrots--hard to say how it was so good, but it was.

To finish we were offered a choice of cakes. I had a mango and almond cake--light, moist and as delicious as everything else.

Cafe Curio isn't cheap but considering the quality of the ingredients and assurance of the cooking it seems perfectly fair. They have opened recently and perhaps they will formalize the operation somewhat, but I hope not. Not knowing what to expect is part of the charm (you might need to negotiate in advance if you are a vegetarian) and I would happily go to Berwick to eat there again.