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Tuesday 10 July 2012

THE BUTTERY CAFE





Sloping Hill - Front Facade, Swing Gate




The Main House Of Burgh


A Sense Of Concealed Beauty



Peep Hole


Tucking In


Fresh Baking


Quiet & Elegant 




The Buttery Menu



Smoked Haddock & Salmon Fishcakes with Sweet Chilli Sauce



Pea, Broad Bean, Potato, Mint & Lemon Fritatta



#28 In a State


Good neighbours become best friends.



The Buttery Cafe at Burgh House, Hampstead conjures up a sense of dignified and affluent retirement. [It would be fascinating to unravel the Curriculum Vitaes of the Buttery's regular punters.]  A quiet hilly and leafy retreat away from the swarms of inner London, this is the place to head for if you seek the perfect winter bowl of hearty soup with warm herb scone and butter, or a refreshing summer pick me up of ginger, hazelnut and pumpkin seed flapjack.


I have been coming here for a number of years and it is a perennial favourite. It now feels the right time to blog about it and share this secret destination. Hopefully the Olympic crowds reading this blog wont remember the postcode.


The setting of course is very English and very grand, Burgh House being built in 1704 during Queen Anne's reign. The Buttery sunken snugly into the basement of the main house alongside the hidden garden, manages to feel cosy, familiar and very welcoming.


T B C has prime adjacency to 'Livingstone Studio' run by the impeccably peaceful and elegant Inge Cordsen. This clothing, weaving and ceramic gallery, is a former Coach House, once owned by Burgh House and now displays the most beautiful collection of artists in London, applying their purist craft and design according to Inge's wonderfully intuitive eye and sensibility.


One such purist is Raag Clothing of India, founded by Textile and Fashion designer Asha Sarabhai who makes the most wonderful utilitarian housecoats with local Indian silk and cotton yarns.  Another is my current favourite designer Ian Batten a quiet genius, under rated and discreetly under the radar. 


It seems these two neighbours and local institutions of East Hampstead are quietly best friends and the pedestrian traffic strides gently, back and forth across the cobbled stones, between the gallery and the buttery.


Butter and Art.  How perfectly matched.









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