Cafe Dharma – Temptation Cafe in Gardner Street
Recently I’d been along to a talk given by a fellow member of Brighton Explorers Club. To mark her 50th birthday, Tattie had trekked solo along the Arctic trail in Greenland at the end of this summer. Being in the wilderness she’d carried all her food for twelve days and a tent in her backpack as she traced the route on her own with only her wits and her maps for company.
I was re-telling this story to my friend Laura as we sat comfortably in Temptation cafe in the North Laine. We’d both fancied some tea and cake and headed to Gardner St in search of a cafe.
Knitted tea cosies are the theme here and the quirky, colourful and inventive creations catch your attention as you walk in right by the cakes. Amazingly, Peter, one of the owners knits them all himself and they’re quite a feature with an intricate Brighton wheel and seagulls handiwork featured in the front window. The wheel actually goes round and is formed from amongst other things a mirror ball motor and an old bicycle wheel.
The café is light and spacious aided by the velux roof windows giving lots of extra light to the area at the back. We sunk into one of the really comfortable sofas and settled down to enjoy our chocolate and coffee and walnut cakes. My pot of tea arrived cossetted in its own original knitted Rudolph Reindeer cosy.
Temptation has won several awards for its catering and standard of food offered all of which is locally sourced in Sussex. There’s some great artwork on the walls of familiar Brighton scenes produced in a distinctive way.
But to go back to women turning fifty and the paths they choose, we had plenty of chat to catch up on how we are changing direction in our lives and choosing to do work that’s more to our liking. It’s inspiring hearing what other women are doing though I’m still not convinced about solo trekking in the wilderness. Temptation or the wilderness? I”ll still opt for Temptation Cafe any time but give full credit to those who have the verve for experience of a less cosy kind.
For lots more postings and photos see http://cafedharma.wordpress.com/
