Emma Louise M.
Yelp
SUGGS! You know you've arrived when you rock up outside a gorgeous café on a sunny day, and there eating his lunch with a bunch of friends is the legendary Suggs, singer with Madness. I squeeeeeeed about this to the BF when I got home, who responded, 'I guess I'm supposed to know who that is.'
I looked horrified. 'Yes, you are. Call yourself a bloody musician.'
I took myself off for a while. It'd be days before I got over that one. Anyway, dreadful revelations aside, my experience at The Quarter was a great one. It's a fine little place, located around the corner from my mum's friend's apartment where she was staying during some of her time in the UK. I'd heard great things already - the garlic flatbread is awesome, apparently, as is the light Italian food - and we popped in for a drink and perhaps even some cake during a little jaunt round Liverpool. In the end the cake options were too plentiful and wonderful for us to actually choose, so we settled on cappuccino and green tea, but more of that later.
The first thing you'll notice about The Quarter is that it's also a deli. All manner of breads, jams, buns, cakes, preserves, sauces and teas lay on those shelves, and it's hard not to spend a good portion of your time there rattling through them all. It even sells Stokes sauces, the ones they have on the tables at Teacup in Manchester which my mum really likes. Up at the counter there are olives, salads and all other sorts of deli wonderments, but the cakes are where it really excels. The Paris Brest, a choux pastry and praline cream concoction of naughty yet light deliciousness is pretty famous here, and the history behind the bun is as such. It was created in 1891 as a commemorative symbol of the Paris-Brest bicycle race, and its donut shape is meant to resemble a wheel.
A tempting, disgustingly lipsmacking bicycle wheel. Ommmm.
Moving swiftly on, what impressed me most about The Quarter aside from its lovely wooden tables, its ambient and homely decor and its SUPER POSH toilets (they are worth a visit alone), was its service. Picture the scenario. We're served by a delightful, bubbly blonde and chicly boho lady. When I request green tea she says they have normal, leaf or a special tropical infusion. I decide to tempt fate and go for the tropical. I get my own little brown teapot of water. The teabag looks like something I'd hang on my doorknob as a decoration, I almost don't want to wet it. It's not made of anything papery. It's MATERIAL. Like cotton. It comes from the Mighty Leaf company and seriously, I never thought I'd be getting so excited over plain old green tea but here was a concoction with a gorgeously smooth undertone of honey and pineapple, and I loved it.
Our lovely waitress comes over again and asks me what it's like, because she wants to drink more green tea and doesn't much care for the taste, so this might be an option for her. I recommended it, and described the flavours. She was so chatty and fun, it was marvellous. Mum went over to the deli to check if they sold it here, but all they had were multipacks of six with a selection of the tropical green and some jasmine stuff. I definitely wanted to take some home, but I would have been happy with just the green. When the waitress returned we asked if it was possible to customise the multipacks. Before I knew it she'd brought me back my very own bag with only the green tropical tea in it. I was one satisfied customer.
The Quarter is part of a family of bars and restaurants in the Hope Street area, and I must say, our experience here was so pleasant, it's easily a five star knockout. And I haven't even tried the food, which I've heard is fantastic, so there we go. This ain't just a Quarter. It goes the whole nine yards and then some. Super place.