Saturday 3 November 2012

The Turl Street Kitchen

The Turl Street Kitchen is a polymorphous beast: is it a café? is it a restaurant? is it a bar? In fact, the TSK is all these things and more. Opening at 8.30am, the TSK serves up simple but brilliant breakfast fodder until 11am, before serving up hearty, home-cooked lunches and delicious dinners. A weird and wonderful selection of cakes, pastries and snacks is on offer throughout the day, but be warned that when they're gone, they're gone!

Part of the Oxford Hub, a student-run charity devoted to helping young people find volunteer opportunities and work in the "third sector", the Turl Street Kitchen is committed to serving up local, organic produce and is an ethical employer. This is reflected in the bistro-style lunch and dinner menus which change daily. In spite of all this virtuousness, I really wanted to hate the TSK. Mainly because it's always buzzing and busy; during the week its stuffed full of kookily dressed students with MacBooks (see previous post for my feelings on students ostentatiously touting MacBooks in cafés whilst wearing edgy geek-chic attire). However, Oxford brogue overkill aside, the TSK is a very pleasant place to work (pen, paper and books only!), read and chill out or to chat with friend - provided you can get a seat.

As this is a café spying blog, and café spying is my business, I'll leave the proper meals and food to the Giles Corens and A.A. Gills of this world, focussing instead on the café-type offerings at the TSK. Being the first and most important meal of the day, I feel breakfast is a fit place to start, as far as food and drink are concerned. Breakfasts at the Turl Street Kitchen are incredible and copius in a sort of "all you can eat" kind of a way. The choice is small but perfect: leaving you the decision between healthy(ish) granola, two boiled eggs with DIY toast, or just DIY toast. The toast idea is inspired: a table is set out with fresh bread - choose from a fabulously crusty farmhouse white with a soft, doughy centre and a beautiful granary loaf - and a four slice toaster. Simply cut your toast how you like it, toast it to perfection and help yourself to the (ever-improving) selection of spreads. The boiled eggs, should you choose them, are fresh, free range and cooked to perfection with a firm white and an oozing, runny yolk. Full of bright yellow mushy omega three, this is brain food and will set you up for a hard day of work, study or shopping. Although the eggs are amazing, on recent visits to the TSK, I have stuck to toast, slathering it with butter and jam or Nutella depending on my mood (though there is also marmalade and honey if you're that way inclined). My only problem with the TSK so far has been that in the mornings I need about six cups of tea to rehydrate and get myself ready for the day. However chunky the TSK mugs, one is never enough and I'm met with surprised looks when I order a lovely strong pot of Assam all for me. All the better for lingering...

If you come later in the day for a light lunch, the lovely, crusty bread makes a reappearance to accompany the ever-changing range of homemade soups. I've only sampled the soup on one occasion - a warming autumnal blend with butternut squash - but the freshly baked bread with butter was the real hit for me. If you're popping in for post-lunch coffee break or some afternoon tea, the TSK selection of cakes and pastries can be a little hit and miss. Around 3pm, this place rolls out a selection of cupcakes, tray-bakes and wild-cards like pork pies (!). The ordinary cakes - by ordinary, I mean vegetable cakes like carrot and courgette as opposed to cupcakes -  are generally quite small and and not necessarily that exciting, but the cupcakes look very enticing.

The real hit at the TSK has, in my experience, been the chocolate brownies, which are dark, dense and just big enough to satisfy. However, due to varying recipes, don't expect the same  thing every time. The first time I tried a TSK brownie, it was a small spoonful pinched off a friend's plate. I'm not sure whether it was because it was a stolen mouthful, but I'm convinced this was the best, most dense and delectable brownie I had ever tasted. From this moment on, I was resolved that my next visit to the Turl Street Kitchen would have to involve brownies. I slunk off here on a few occasions for a cup of tea, but there were no brownies. On another visit, I got lucky, but my own brownie didn't quite live up to the fudgy morsel I had filched some weeks previously. The second brownie, while still dark and chocolatey, had a strange crystalline texture, as if it had been made with granulated sugar which hadn't quite dissolved into the mixture. The brownie also had a bizarre yeasty taste, which gave you the feeling someone had experimented with a good slug of Guinness. In fact, this may, indeed have been a beer brownie, accounting for the strange brewery-inspired flavour. Anyway, while nice enough, this second brownie certainly didn't live up to the truffley smooth deliciousness of my first TSK brownie experience. If you've got a taste for adventure then the TSK's food lottery is for you.

The coffee here is really good (good as in nice and drinkable!) and is always beautifully presented. There is a huge selection of loose-leaf teas, which I'm currently working my way through. The TSK operates a system rather like Starbucks in that you order your drinks and then wait for them on the other side of the counter. This can take a while but, mercifully, unlike Starbucks, the TSK staff (can I call them baristas?) don't ask for your name/pseudonym/alter-ego before they make your coffee, so you can go about your afternoon caffeination in blissful anonymity. The hot chocolate here is amazing too, with a satisfyingly sweet and soupy texture that makes it a comforting warmer for wintery days.

The TSK kitchen deserves bonus points for its excellent toilet facilities which are beautifully decorated, clean and well-stocked with toilet roll and and soap as well as having speedy Dyson hand-dryers so you don't get a huge dripping crowd, waiting to dry their hands in the ladies'.

All in all, the fact that the Turl Street Kitchen has managed to convince me to love it, despite the challenges of getting a suitable seat, the hoards of hip fashion-blogger type students and the inconsistent quality of the cakes, makes this place a real triumph. Go for the yoga on Thursday mornings and stay for a delicious (and discounted) brekkie!


 The Verdict

***
Coffee: 4/5
Cakes: 2/5
Customer Service: 3/5
Pretentiousness: 2/5
Toilets: 4/5
Carrot cake bonus: Not awarded.