There was no trouble in store when Malcolm Warne tried out Chadwick's at Teesside Park

WE have become used to the idea of cafes popping up in the most unlikely places – shops in particular. Almost every retailer these days tries to cram a coffee shop in somewhere – there’s good money to be made in serving fancy coffee.

So when earlier this year Barker and Stonehouse opened their supa-dupa and most striking flagship furniture store – a cross between an airport terminal building and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – on the Teesside Retail Park, the fact that it included a cafe attracted little or no attention. The fact that one of this region’s culinary celebrities was behind the cafe paled into insignificance when up against the star power of Bake-Off favourite Mary Berry, who did the official opening day honours.

Regional culinary celebrity? We don’t have many of those, but Daryl Chadwick is certainly among the select number to justify the tag.

A former Army parachutist, he teamed up with Toni Pala (of fabled Romanby Court fame) to launch the Imperial Express cafe in Darlington more than 30 years ago. It was the town’s first experience of the now ubiquitous cappaccino.

He took the continental cafe format with him to open the eponymous D P Chadwicks in Yarm and then on to Cafe Lilli in Norton – all the while setting a standard others tried to follow with varying degrees of success.

The latest venture, Chardwick & Co Coffee House and Kitchen, is not in the same ground-breaking mould – that is if you don’t classify opening a destination cafe above a shop in a giant retail park ground-breaking.

The cafe is situated at the highest point of the aircraft hanger-sized store, a striking building complete with its living wall featuring more than 2,000 plants.

The cafe, stylishly furnished to complement the store environment, is reached by two flights of stairs or a lift. It is effectively a large shelf with views over the two floors of furniture and furnishings below plus an outside terrace area. Those without much of head for heights might choose their table carefully.

Like his previous enterprises, the cafe format endeavours to cater for all, at any time. So, for breakfast one could have the standard full English or a bacon sandwich. But then not many cafes on Teesside will also offer toasted nut and oat granola, salt beef and potato hash browns with homemade “daddies” sauce, a honey-flavoured latte or Greek lemonade.

There are also lots of patisserie goodies along with afternoon tea and lunches and a weekly-changing dinner menu based on a tapas-style mix-and-match small and large plates. Locally-sourced, seasonal produce is centre stage.

Another early clue to this cafe’s different approach is the pre-prandial appetiser. Not a basket of bread, or some olives, or a little amuse bouche – just a small bowlful of super fresh peas in the pod along with a pile of incredible celery salt spice up with some dried mint. A novelty, yes, but a great flavour combination. It felt like the essence of summer as we sat at the entrance to the cafe’s small roof terrace with southern views to the Cleveland Hills and the Vale of York (just ignore the retail park and Thornaby in the foreground).

From the market grazing menu, we had chosen three small plates to share as starters and two large plates for our mains. That was more than adequate and left no room for any of the temptingly-sweet sticky things on offer.

Our three small plates (£10 for the trio) were beautifully earthy golden roasted Jersey Royal potato wedges, scattered with shavings of Berkswell unpasteurised goats cheese (like a good Manchego) and drizzled with a little truffle oil, moist minced prawn croquettes with a singular (in a good way) sesame and seaweed mayo and the house black pudding scotch egg, served with a mild French grain mustard. The scotch egg was particularly good – a smooth and rich black pudding encasing the freshest, golden-yolked egg, all wrapped up in the lightest of crisp breadcrumb coatings.

We also shared our main courses (both £10), the best of which was the market fish of the day – brill – with summer vegetables and aioli. The brill was brill. Small glistening fillets of almost translucent fish, perfectly cooked and sat atop a melange of greens, baby asparagus tips and peas with a mild garlic mayonnaise drizzled around.

Popcorn chicken was chicken nuggets for grown-ups, made with decent chicken and with a light breadcrumb coating. It came with nicely charred quarter corn cobs and a creamy and crunchy freshly-made coleslaw. The scattering of popcorn did not add much flavour-wise but looked pretty.

We finished with top quality espresso and cappuccino coffees (£2/2.75) and settled our bill of £48.65 – which included two punchy Aperol Spritz (£5.95 each). Service was efficiently charming.

Making our way downstairs, we resisted the temptation to buy a new three-piece suite on the way out. Mission accomplished.

 

FOOD FACTS

Chadwicks & Co coffee House & Kitchen, Barker & Stonehouse, haydock Park Way, Teesside Park, TS17 7BG

Tel: 01642-757800

Web: chadwickandcompany.co.uk

Food quality: 4/5

Service: 4/5

Surroundings: 5/5

Value: 5/5