Life

Eating Out: Cafe Melrose a cafe that crosses into bistro territory and does both well

Cafe Melrose, which opened earlier this month at the junction of Melrose Street and Lisburn Road in Belfast, is clearly aiming for something more than the usual
Cafe Melrose, which opened earlier this month at the junction of Melrose Street and Lisburn Road in Belfast, is clearly aiming for something more than the usual Cafe Melrose, which opened earlier this month at the junction of Melrose Street and Lisburn Road in Belfast, is clearly aiming for something more than the usual

Cafe Melrose,

207 Lisburn Road,

Belfast,

BT9 7EJ

www.cafemelrose.com

MORE often than not, especially if you go back a few years, when you went into whatever version of "wee cafe" you found on a town or city street you knew what you were getting and were happy when you got it.

Tea. Check. Coffee (maybe even a cappuccino). Check. Traybakes you could build a coal bunker with. Check. Fry. Check. The odd toastie. Check. More tea. Check.

To be clear, any place that just does all that stuff right is somewhere to be treasured. But offering something else is never going to do any harm – as long as you do that something else as well as all the usual.

Cafe Melrose, which opened earlier this month where the eponymous street meets the Lisburn Road in Belfast, is clearly aiming for something more than the usual.

Up front, with hefty traybakes on display, it feels like the cafe you'd expect. As the surprisingly roomy space stretches away from the street it feels more like somewhere for something more substantial.

The food on offer only confirms this. It checks off the tea, the coffee, the sandwiches, but pitches itself much closer to a neighbourhood bistro with the rest of its menu.

As well as the fry at breakfast time there are kippers and eggs Benedict and smoked salmon, while the interest gets piqued even more later in the day. Wheels aren't being reinvented but the flavours slot together perfectly on the page and are executed just as well on the plate.

A Mediterranean mezze platter for two at £12 provides flatbreads, cous cous spiked with sun-dried tomatoes and capers, tzatziki, harissa oil, hummus and some cool crunch from celery, carrot, cucumber and baby gem.

The centrepiece was a quartet of shimmeringly hot falafels full of whole chick peas. It took some self-control to not order the full portion of them available as a main course.

You'd be happy if you got the special of a steak sandwich anywhere – especially for £8.95 with a side of hot, crisp and well-salted sweet potato fries. Everything was just as you'd want it, with the salsa verde mayonnaise – fresh, sharp, soothing with a fantastic basil finish – making everything a little bit better.

Just about everywhere does chicken wings. They fall squarely into the pulled pork, craft beer territory that can be impossible to avoid, especially in a city. But even places with the best intentions – or worst pretensions – manage to make a mess of them.

Either they're over sauced or over spiced – if you can't taste anything on your second bite you've got a bad chicken wing – or nowhere near crisp enough – they're meant to be deep fried for a reason – or criminally not split in half and served as a flabby hinge of disappointment.

The wings at Cafe Melrose aren't of the classic buffalo variety – they call them sriracha style but really they fall more broadly into an 'Asian' bracket with sweet, salty and sesame notes backed by heat from the garlicky sriracha – a Thai chili sauce. Either way, they're an example to be followed.

A hop across cultures for more of the cooling cucumber-laden tzatziki from the mezze platter keeps things from getting out of hand, while a crunchy salad shot through with some pickled cabbage lets you kid yourself you're having a legitimate square meal.

A large portion goes for £9.50 – you can have them as a starter for £5.50 – and would only have disappeared quicker had I taken advantage of the bring your own policy and added a couple of beers, craft or otherwise.

The desserts – all £5.50 – aren't necessarily what you'd expect either and included a miso caramel chocolate torte and a lemon drizzle cake with pistachio and pomegranate. In the end, a caramel square and fifteen were just what you'd expect and rounded things off by bringing you squarely back to Earth – just the way you'd want to be.

THE BILL

Mezze platter £12

Chicken wings £9.50

Steak sandwich £8.95

Traybake x2 £5

Sparkling water £2.50

Fanta £2.50

Americano £2.50

Cappuccino £2.65

Total £45.60