Indian summer. (The Owl Tea Room, Holt.)

The Owl Tea room,

Holt,

Opening times Mon-Sat 08:30-17:00,

Changed Hands

As we have been having an Indian summer this year it has been disappointing that I have not been able to go on a cafe cycle ride for over a week. So I was glad that I had been able to round up two guests, Chris (Mrs Crusader) and Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please), for a ride today.

We met at Andrew's house in Aylsham where I had foolishly put Andrew in charge of the route. He planned for us to go to The Owl Tea Room in Holt but didn't yet know the route or how long it would take. His approach was to let these two things develop organicly as we went along. Fortunately my new bike GPS tracks the route so I should be able to share it once I can work out how that feature works.

Our first challenge was determining the number of layers to wear as these autumn days start cold and misty before they warm up. We didn't want to have too many 'hot top stops' which Chris is very fond of wanting. Fortunately we only needed the one and got to Holt at the required body temperature.

The Owl tea room has a small continental style outdoor seating area at the front and a lovely walled garden outdoor seating area at the back. To make the most of the sun we opted to sit round the back, which was extremely pleasant. In a desperate attempt at an image make over and to prove he is in fact 'extremely easy to satisfy' Andrew wanted to give a 10 rating for the Ambiance but then the sun went in and normal service was soon resumed.

Outside the Owl Tea Room.
 In the outdoor continental pavement style seating area

We went inside to check out the cakes and award the effective cake selection (ECS) score. The cakes were spread out throughout the store, with some in the counter area, some in the bakery area and others on random shelves. This made cake comparison difficult as you had to weigh up the options by going from one area to another.

Cakes on display behind a Victorian style window lattice

After much running around the tea room I settled on the nut fridge cake. I still don't know why it is called a fridge cake as it wasn't in the fridge, didn't look like a fridge and didn't taste of fridge. Chris went for a skinny mocha and chocolate sponge and Andrew cappuccino and coffee and walnut cake.

The nut fridge cake was very nice and the walnut coffee sponge was an excellent example of it's type. The chocolate sponge was not as good as the other cakes especially as the chocolate flake decoration, that had originally attracted Chris to the cake, turned out not to be authentic Cadburys which didn't go down well with her. 

Cakes and drinks ready for cafe cycle reviewing

Although not part of cycle cafe rating we had lunch at the Owl tea room as well as cake. We were all very impressed with the food and enjoyed excellent stilton quiche, pizza type thing and accompanying salads. Myself and Chris thought they were one of the best cafe stop lunches we had had (and we have now had a lot). Andrew (who remains notoriously hard to please) saw his attempted image make over crack further as he didn't like the number of rasins in his colesaw. Apparently there is no place for fruit in salad.

The Owl proved an excellent cafe cycle stop and even better if you want some lunch.

It is now nearly a year since I started the Norfolk Cafe Cycle Tour Blog and on the way back I shared with Andrew some of the new ideas I have for year two. He thought they were jolly exciting so I to hope to be announcing some of these new features soon.

Ratings for The Owl Cafe based on 2 visits. Last visit 30/12/2021

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.78	7.0	8.25	8.5	8.5	8.01

Route

Click here to download 32 Mile Alysham Holt loop GPX file for your GPS