CAFFÈ BOLERO (From Worcester News)

CAFFÈ BOLERO

3:35pm Monday 31st October 2011 in Restaurant reviews

CAFFÈ BOLERO
2-4 St Nicholas Street, Worcester
Tel: 01905 24548

LAST week my colleague visited a restaurant keen on serving deserts. This week, in an effort to rebalance the shortage of consonants, I tried a cafe that likes to be spelt with two fs.

Extra fricatives aside, I wish this place had been about when my children were small. It reminds me of Edinburgh during the Festival Fringe – the place was humming, rather than buzzing and it was a real plus point that the background music was precisely that.

And all of humanity was in there. From Guardian readers to Sun readers; from ladies who lunch to students not really paying much attention to the thick books lying in front of them; from a man attached umbilically to his laptop to a small boy making the most of his tasty cake before getting out his toy car, everyone was enjoying themselves.

We went on a Saturday lunchtime – not perhaps the most judicious piece of planning on our part but hey, if a caf(f)è can cope well at the busiest time of the week then any plaudits are well deserved.

The menu is straightforward with most mains ranging from £3.99 up to £6.99 and a decent choice of cakes to enjoy as dessert.

My wife opted for a plain panini with roast sliced peppers, Mediterranean vegetables and goats’ cheese while my brother-inlaw and I both selected from the daily specials board – and both chose the same thing, linguine with ham in a carbonara sauce.

The dishes arrived with a minimum of fuss in what seemed like only minutes after we had ordered them at the efficient front desk and they were piping hot without being mouth-searing.

Even if they had been just too hot, we could have helped ourselves from the free iced water on the sideboard to cool things down. The coffees, both the cafe mocha and the cappuccino, earned a big thumbs-up from my wife.

My brother-in-law, a connoisseur of hot chocolate who’s spent the last 12 months in and out of Canadian coffee shops (mostly in), gave both the regular and caramel flavour big pass marks.

The only slight letdown was my large diet coke, which a) wasn’t that large and b) came with a straw – and even in the half-light, my grey hair is obvious.

The service came with a variety of accents and always with a smile.

The total bill for the three of us was about £25 – money well spent for a cosmopolitan hour or so on an autumn weekend.

HOW IT RATED

Food: 4
Service: 5
Ambience: 5
Value for money: 4.