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Spinelli Coffee arrives in Brighton

In an age when our cities are dominated by coffee chains, it comes as a great relief to find a stylish new independent.

Spinelli Coffee combines the best of modern Californian café culture with great-tasting, high-quality speciality coffees roasted by Red Roaster Coffee and delicious pastries and savouries from Brighton’s celebrated Real Patisserie. Coffee shops abroad open early and stay open, catering for busy people who rise early and work late. Carlo Torre and his team promise to do just that. Carlo is committed to Spinelli being the real deal and has recruited a team of experienced baristas to ensure that this is the ultimate coffee experience. And the coffee is great (we tried it several times to find out). Not only does it taste great, but it looks good, too, with wildly creative designs in every topping of thick froth.

Designed by renowned Brighton design firm Wilson Cory, style is key to the whole package – from beautiful sliding oak doors onto a heated outdoor seating area with sea views, lush coffee-coloured walls, comfortable seating, Brazilian mahogany parquet floors to stylish lighting. Downstairs the Still Room offers a tranquil atmosphere where soft light filters through a bed of calathea plants. The space is an ideal venue for meetings and parties and even offers complimentary computer stations. There is also a free WiFi connection throughout the entire café.

Great coffee, good food and a relaxed atmosphere in which everyone can find a space to kick back and feel at home. At Spinelli the service is personal. Order and sit back with a book, a paper or simply relax as the locals already do. Join them at Spinelli Coffee, located in the heart of Kemp Town Village, just off the corner of St George’s Road and College Road.

Spinelli Coffee, 24 Garnet House, College Road, Brighton, 01273 818819. Open Mon–Fri 7.30am–7pm, Sat 8am–6pm, Sun 8.30am–4pm.

Katie wonders if there’s any more to her life than work, work, work

This week I read an article about women who work a lot. Actually it was more of a women-wholive- alone-and-work-too-hard-sohave- no-friends-or-life-and-thendie- a-sad-lonely-death-but-noone- even-notices-(becauseeveryone- just-assumes-they-are- ’at-work’)-until-the-neighbourscomplain- about-the-smell kind of article.

Anyway, damn the specifics, it struck a chord. You could say I’ve been working a lot recently. And it’s starting to worry me.

“Would you notice if I died?” I asked my new best friend Rupert, “or would you just assume I was at work?”.

“Are you at work now?” he asked.

“Er yes,” I admitted, checking the clock and noting that 10.30pm wasn’t the latest I’d been sat at my computer this week.

“So if you died,” said Tom “the clues would be…”

“Well you’d have to start buying your own vodka for a start,” I snapped, clinking down the phone and starting up this column. But at some point past 1am, when I finally went to bed, I started to think.

Had I put my career before everything else? Was I destined to turn into a career bitch? Had journalism taken over my life? And why was I asking all these questions like I was Carrie bloody Bradshaw?

When you’ve got issues like that its hard to know who to talk to. I called Parcel Force.

It’s been three weeks since I tried to get Parcelforce to redeliver the parcel that they’d brought over ‘while I was out’, and so far a combination of my workaholism and their ineptitude meant I was getting no closer to seeing it. But today, I decide, will be the day we finally sort it out. So I’m appeasing my anger by thrashing out the redelivery down the phone.

“I don’t think we should redeliver,” the rude man from Parcelforce is saying, “can’t you come and pick it up? What about Wednesday?”

“I’ve told you, I have to work Wednesday.”

“But we’re open until 8pm.”

“I know, but I’ll still be at work.”

“Thursday? Or even Friday?”

“I’m working every day this week until late,” I tell him, thinking about the days that will start at 9am and finish sometime past 12am.

“Next week?”
“Next week too.”
“What about Saturday morning?”

“I’ve got to work Saturday,” I tell him, depressed. “I don’t understand why you won’t just redeliver.”

“You can’t be working Saturday – nobody works that much.” He really does say this and, naturally, I am irritated.

“I am working that much. I’m working all the bloody time,” I scream.

“When do you go shopping then?” (Yes, he does ask this too. He cannot be serious). There is silence while I think miserably about the fact I never go shopping. And about the irony that the dress I bought online is the very one Parcelforce are holding hostage.

“I don’t go shopping,” my teeth are gritted.

“Your life,” the man from Parcelforce who has no right to comment on such things, says, “sounds rubbish.”

I bite my lip, hang up the phone and remind myself gently that the man from Parcelforce does not really know anything about me or my life.

Then I walk across the office and ask my editor for a day off.

Sandra Omo on the power of an impressive portfolio

I have been very occupied this week with the task of adding new photos to my portfolio. Half way through the week, I realised that I was not just adding new pictures as I had set out to do, but was actually printing a completely new portfolio over again when the one I have is only six months old. How often then do models need to update our portfolios? I reckon as often as we can – if we feel our looks have improved, or if there is a particular image we would like to portray.

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Andrew Kay on food and wine courses in Brighton and France

I know many of you think writing this column is a plum job, but take a look at these guys who have created a new business that reflects their love of all things gustatory. It’s a start-up company by two Brightonians, one of whom lives in the City and runs a very successful catering company – Kim Ryan of Plum Catering – and Philip Reddaway, who has left Brighton for good to set up a wine and food course centre in Provence.

He is currently promoting a course which is unique in that it has a black truffle theme. The four-night courses take place this winter to a background of roaring log fires in their kitchen. The black truffle season runs from November to March.

“Guests will help their truffle-hunting neighbour Jean-Benoit and his dogs to hunt for the truffles underneath his oak trees”

Course guests will help their truffle-hunting neighbour Jean-Benoit and his dogs to hunt for the truffles underneath his oak trees. Kim will then tutor them through preparing four different truffle dishes across the duration of the course.

As a WSET (Wine And Spirit Education Trust) approved wine instructor, Philip will be on hand to contribute wine and food matching advice as well as a tutored tasting and visit to a superb local Côtes du Rhône biodynamic winery. Plus, he promises that he will be making certain that guests enjoy some choice bottles from his own cellar in the evening to accompany their culinary efforts.

The course takes place over three days and four nights at La Madelene. Each day is divided into two with a morning activity followed by lunch on the terrace. Each dish is demonstrated first with an explanation of the methods used. The afternoons will be spent cooking in the priory’s beautiful kitchen and everyone will sit down in the evening to enjoy the food they cooked, with some carefully selected wines.

They say Plum In Provence will be a foodie’s dream short break… and I agree.

For more information contact Kim Ryan by emailing kim@plumcateringbrighton.co.uk or calling 01273 681092. Or email Philip Reddaway at philip.reddaway@carat.com or philip_reddaway@yahoo.co.uk or call him on 07771 725923.