Eating in the Garden

The Seven Oaks Garden Centre Café on Lôn Parcwr opened during the summer. In terms of the staff therein serving, it's kind of Siop Nain meets Crown House meets Annie's. The short order cook once worked at Siop Nain—but she's left the stale menu behind. One of those who waits on worked for Siop Nain for some years before moving to Annie's (when we visited, she was chewing gum. Call me old fashioned...). Another was a stalwart of Crown House.

And the whole garden centre site—save for the entrance area where you park—has benefited from a significant tidying up and this really does improve the surroundings. We can't help wondering, though, whether the proprietors have perhaps over-ordered on the ornamental pots.

Back the the café and during our visit, we chose a jacket potato, one with cheesy beans. Like all the café's menu, the food is not pretentious but it does boast locally sourced produce, where possible. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the jacket but the salad was abundant, varied, colourful and fresh. And the tomatoes were ripe: how often these days are you served under-rip, bitter, sour, over-firm tomatoes?

No potato chips, mind, which was strange given that the short order cook was ex-Siop Nain. In a nod to Annie's, the place offered blueberry & lemon scones.

And during a Friday lunchtime, all but one covers were taken. No one seemed put off by the slightly depressing drive through the industrial estate to find the garden centre. I wonder whether any or all of them may have been refugees from Café Rh in the Craft Centre.

The interior décor at the garden centre café was nice, too. Within, white ceiling and mint walls were set off against olive pillars and lime and white wallpaper at either end. Outside, as I have mentioned, the area was tidy and there were, of course, views to Foel Fenlli. What other Rhuthun/Ruthin café offers this? When the weather improves, there was scope to eat out, too.