Feedback. (Back to the Garden, Letheringsett)

Back to the Garden,

Letheringsett,

Mon-Sat 08:15-5:00, Sun 09:00-4:00,

Highly Recommended

I had arranged to meet Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) at Hard to Please House in Aylsham for  a ride. I had recently spotted the Back to the Garden farm shop and cafe at Letheringsett near Holt so decided this would be the perfect opportunity to check it out.

I asked Andrew if he could provide a 40 mile route to encompass the cafe. I knew this would be done old school with the ride organically developing as we went along rather than getting sent a GPX file to follow on my Garmin, which seems to be most peoples preferred option these days.

Once at Hard to Please House I unpacked my bike while Andrew faffed with his cycling clothing choices for the ride (it took 3 changes of top before he was ready) but eventually we were on our way.

I had picked excellent conditions, if a bit windy as we enjoyed an incident free ride while Andrew let fly with a series of rants. Topics included tourists ruining the Lake District and that there are too many people with dogs in St David’s, Wales.

Andrew's excellent route unfolded until, unfortunately, the last mile down to our venue was down the main road. Never a pleasant experience but we safely arrived at Back to the Garden.

Safely arriving at back to the garden

Once inside I immediately checked out the excellent cake selection which made me think the other food would be good too.

Excellent cake selection

There was a choice of a large barn style indoor seating area or a delightful outdoor garden area at the back (which I assume is where the cafe gets its name from). As it was a bit windy we decided to stay inside.

The garden you can go back to

When it came to ordering we hit a bit of a conundrum, the breakfast menu ended at 11.30 and lunch menu didn’t start until 12.00. It was now 11.40 and we had found ourselves in the menu twilight zone. The waitress confirmed it was cakes or nothing for the next twenty minutes, an interesting business model for a cafe, but we went with it. 

It did mean that Andrew couldn’t have the avocado and Brie ciabatta he wanted but I explained that eating avocado was very bad for the environment and there had been a lot of publicity about it recently. He promised never to eat one again.

The lack of lunch menu wasn’t really a problem as I went for a cheese scone and Bakewell blondie and Andrew followed suit. This caused great excitement to the couple sitting on the next table. The elderly lady came across to make sure she had heard right and that I had ordered a cheese scone. I wasn’t sure if she was about to advise me against having one but instead told me she had just had one and it was excellent so, waving a napkin with a half eaten scone in it, she would be taking the rest home. Slightly bemused I thanked her for her unsolicited feedback, she seemed happy enough and went on her way.

I was now even more excited about our refreshments (and I can get pretty damn excited over cake) but when it arrived I couldn’t believe my eyes as all 4 cake based items had been served slap bang in the middle of their serviettes arghhhhhh!. That’s 4 bits of paper pointlessly ruined and the good environmental work Andrew had done, by not be allowed his avocado ciabatta, had been wiped out with the climate crisis now moving a step closer. Remember #keepcakeoffserviettes!

Could hardly believe my eyes as 4 cakes served on serviettes turn up

Once I had calmed down we tried our cakes and Andrew confirmed that it was indeed a very good cheese scone but neither of us felt strongly enough to congratulate any other cheese scone orderers on their choice. They would have to make their own mind up.

The tea and hot chocolate were good too and the staff were very friendly so if you avoid the menu dead zone then I would highly recommend a visit.

The return trip was into the wind making it a lot tougher but Andrew managed to make the ride 39.6 miles which was a good effort seeing as he didn’t know what the route would be when we set off.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.4	7	8.1	8.0	7	7.46

Route (not the actual one as it was an Andrew “make it up as you go along special” but this is a similar one)

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