Esters

Eclectic breakfasts are served until noon during the week at this friendly, hip and easy-going Stokey coffee house, but the kitchen tweaks its offer for brunch at the weekend. Staples such as bircher muesli, French toast and poached eggs with carrot escabèche, carrot-top pesto and pumpkin-seed salsa are joined by the likes of asparagus with grelot onions, pecans, preserved lemon or roast chicken salad with cucumber, alphonso mango and sesame – both with a soft-boiled egg in the mix. Simple weekday lunches might bring sweetcorn soup with nectarine, curry leaf and crème fraîche ahead of whipped cod’s roe with baby gem, broad beans, buckwheat, trout roe and a soft-boiled egg, plus loquat ice cream for afters. To drink? Juices, coffee from reliable roasters, Postcard teas and house-made softies (beet and rhubarb drinking vinegar, anyone?). Just remember they no longer accept cash (cards only).