Meg Rivers Café, Cotswolds.

My husband Geoff and I went away for a few days to the Cotswolds and he found a place online which he thought I may like. And he was right! Meg Rivers is a family-run artisan bakery and is situated in a converted barn on top of Westington Hill on the outskirts of Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire surrounded by beautiful countryside and chocolate-box cottages.

Meg Rivers café opened in 2010 and forms part of the Lapstone complex, selling upmarket furniture, ladies & menswear, homeware and gifts. There’s a hairdresser and beauty salon on site too. The café menu offers rolls, soups, salads, quiche, Croque-monsieur etc., lots of different teas including one which was Earl Grey with blue cornflower petals – sounds interesting. The tables and chairs and the interior decor had a bright modern look, the colours and cushions used very ‘Orla Kiely-ish’.

I chose poached pear, brie & walnut salad for my main course. This was served with some extremely fresh bread with olives inside and the butter was spreadable! I hate hard cold butter which you cannot spread but this was perfect and the bread really was tasty. The pear in my salad was juicy and not too hard nor too soft and went well with the slices of brie and plenty of walnuts amongst the fresh salad and rocket leaves, drizzled with a mustard & balsamic vinegar dressing.

Geoff loves fruit cake and always goes with that choice if it’s available. This fruit cake is a mini cake but very rich and packed with juicy fruit, cinnamon, peel and topped with a cherry. I had a taste and it was lovely. Geoff said it was the best fruit cake he’d had in a long time.

I went for the Victoria sponge, mainly because it looked very nice but also because it was a whole cake with no slices taken so I presumed it would be fresh. And fresh it most certainly was! The sponge was light and fluffy, definitely a ‘home-made‘ cake, with raspberry jam on both sides of the cake which had soaked in slightly and cream in the centre. The top was dusted with castor sugar. As I write this I can actually taste it!

Up at the counter there were many mini cakes like the fruit cake Geoff had to eat. Meg Rivers offers a ‘Cake club’, you are sent a different cake each month. It’s not cheap though, £55 for 3 months – it works out cheaper for 6 or 12 months membership but a great gift idea for any cake lover. Celebration cakes and other occasion cakes such as ‘get well soon’, ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ etc., are also available in many different flavours.

We enjoyed our meal at the café and looking around the shop and if we’re ever in the vicinity again we shall more than likely return.

Living life, loving cake,

A x