Classic or ethnic with cafe society
Running a cafe in Northampton's town centre cannot be easy for the simple reason that there are so many.
Whether a hungry Northampton customer is searching for paninis, soups, full English breakfast, pasties, sausage rolls or sandwiches, there are plenty of venues.
And numbers seem to be growing.
Competing in the town's vibrant cafe culture requires a plan of action and most owners and managers will agree that the key to survival in a competitive market is to offer something unique.
This year alone many cafes have opened or relaunched in new forms, but there is a great focus on offering the town centre shopper something they are not going to buy anywhere else.
At the Fishmarket Cafe Bar, managers Jackie Daverson and Martin Browse believe the key to drawing in Northampton's cafe crowd is to offer a taste of quality British home cooking.
The word "homemade" features on the menu more than once, in a list which includes soups, breads, quiches and savoury tarts.
Martin said: "This is freshly-cooked food, using ingredients which are in season. And we don't use any processed food, so we get all the taste."
Jackie added: "We cook everything from scratch right here, which is quite unique in terms of the cafe industry. Customers can watch us preparing the food.
"The recipes come from us and we use a few other people's recipes, which we then develop and enhance.
"I think there is always the challenge that the Northampton public can only be shared around so far, but we offer something that is unique to this part of town."
Just a short walk up Abington Street will take food lovers to more cafes.
In York Road, there are two new businesses finding their feet.
Good Morning Vietnam is already open to those who want to use its upstairs internet facility, but the cafe side is expected to open in about four weeks. And the business is expected to deliver a mix of culinary cultures.
A spokeswoman said the cafe should be open throughout the day and evenings, offering hot and cold foods such as sandwiches; but culinary concoctions from Vietnam, China and France are also being planned.
Just down the road is the Makmara cafe and restaurant, a business which was taken over by Russian-born Aleksandrs Mihailovs in January.
The majority of the menu is inspired by traditional Russian and Latvian food, supplemented by home grown classics such as the traditional English breakfast.
For this reason, Makmara attracts a real mix of cultures within its clientele.
Northampton is now home to a number of Eastern European immigrants but Aleksandrs said there were few places where they could go to eat the typical foods of their countries.
He said: "If people are after a certain dish from their country and we know how to cook it, we will cook it for them."
Some of the dishes on offer include olivier, a Russian salad made with potatoes, carrots, onions, pickled gherkins, peas, boiled egg and a cooked meat which could be chicken or pork. It is combined with mayonnaise or salad cream.
Aleksandrs said: “We eat it in Russia at lunch and lunch is our main meal of the day. We would offer that or soup and the main course would be based on chicken, pork or lamb.”
One typical main course is turkey roulette; a turkey breast fillet with feta cheese, grape leaves, mushrooms, herbs, spices, salt and pepper.
Aleksandrs said: “We serve different groups of people here. The English people have been a bit hard to convince and can be a bit conservative; they go with the traditional English breakfast.
“But they have started to pick up on our soups now. There are lots of English people who try our dishes and like them.”
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Weather for Northampton
Thursday 09 February 2012
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