Closing time. (Artemis cafe, Cley Next the sea)

Artemis Cafe,

Cley Next The Sea,

Opening times Mon-Sat 10:00-17:00,

Sun 11:00-16:00  

Highly Recommended 

Looking at my cafe locations map I have noticed that the North Norfolk area appears to be a hotspot for top rated cafes. So as today was time for a ride from Hard to Please House in Alysham it seemed like a good opportunity to visit a new cafe in that vicinity. To spice things up a bit I had given today's cycling guest Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) three possible destinations to choose from and put him in charge of the route so where we would be going would be a mystery to me.

I was a little late setting off to the start point as my normal bike had developed a last minute fault and I had to get my reserve bike prepared instead. My reserve bike is the only bike I own that has a name, thanks to an ill judged naming competition I organised on my Twitter feed last year. So with Bikey Mcbikeface finally loaded in the back of the car I set off to Hard to Please House ready to find out where we would be going.

On arrival Andrew said he would like to keep me guessing as to our final destination before leaping on his bike and charging off towards the Norfolk Coast with me struggling behind as I got used to riding Bikey Mcbikeface once more. Andrew explained we would have to ride quickly as according to the cafe website it shuts at 1pm today.

I was worried that Andrew had not stuck to the brief and would be taking us to Holt, his default destination, so I was mighty relieved when we went past there and out to Cley next the Sea where we found  one of my options, Artemis Cafe.

Artemis Cafe in Cley Next the Sea

We had pedalled hard and arrived at about 12:30, well before the potential closing time. On arrival I was instantly impressed by the outdoor seating area that over looks the marshes. There were even some outdoor sofas.

Outdoor seating area

It was a bit chilly so we went inside to the cosy indoor tables. The whole set up plus the very friendly welcome gave an extremely high atmosphere and ambiance (AAA) rating.

I checked out the cake selection which had a good range but fairly small leading to a reasonable effective cake selection (ECS) score. 

Good solid selection of cakes

I ordered some zucchini and lime cake to go with my hot chocolate and Andrew had a cappuccino and millionaire style shortbread. As it was lunchtime, and although it isn't cake, I also treated myself to a sausage roll, which was super.

Our food and drinks soon arrived and we were both very impressed with our drinks especially when, as a nice touch, the chocolate sprinkles were added at the table to our personal taste, a bit like the pepper at a posh pizza restaurant. It was an excellent hot chocolate with a really good chocolate taste and Andrew thought his coffee was top draw too although he would have liked it to be slightly hotter.

Driks just after chocolate sprinkles were added

Andrew had started his biscuit early and already said it was very good. I tried my cake and which was superb and the best zucchini and lime cake I could remember having (and I have tried several). For a second opinion I asked Andrew(who is notoriously hard to please) if he would like to taste some. He wasn't sure if he would like zucchini in his cake and wondered if it would be better to make it using courgette instead. However once he had had a piece he was blown away and thought it was one of the best cakes ever.

Great cakes

All in all Artemis cafe had proved another North Norfolk winner and went straight into my current top five. With a larger cake selection it could easily have gone to number one and I highly recommend a visit and look forward to returning soon.

View from outdoor seating area over the marshes

It was now gone one o'clock so I was impressed they were still open and seemed in no hurry to throw us out. I asked the owner if he was looking forward to closing early today for Easter. He looked at me like I was an idiot with a 'why would I close early over the busy Easter period' expression. I explained that Andrew had seen they were closing early on their website. He was unaware of this and said that today was the day they switched to summer opening times. He was now worried that there would be no customers this afternoon so went off to contact the Artemis Cafe IT Director, who was also the barista, to find out what was going on. Andrew suggested he may have made a mistake so we quickly left before we started any more rumours..

Now I had re established my riding relationship with Bikey Mcbikeface we made good progress on the return ride home. Once back at Crusader Towers I checked out the Artemis cafe website where there was no sign of there ever being an early closing time today. Either the IT director had quickly corrected things or more likely, Andrew had looked at another of today's possible cafes websites and got confused, again.

Scores based on 3 visits

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
8.6	8.17	6.35	8.92	8.58	8.12

route

Click here to download 37 mile Alysham Wiveton loop gpx file for your GPS