In the old dairy: breakfast until half past eleven, lunch from noon, cooked from the shelves, a fire in winter and the orchard in summer
The café
The old dairy is the café: thirty seats inside under the beams and twenty in the orchard. The farm breakfast at £9.50 is our eggs and the Pendoylan bacon and sausage; lunch from noon is a soup, a pie and a plate of the day from whatever is on the trestles, at £11; cakes from the farmhouse kitchen; coffee from a Cardiff roaster. Open daily nine to four; dogs and boots welcome.
The dairy stopped milking in 1998 and became the café in 2011, which is why there is a drain in the floor and a stove where the bulk tank was. Thirty seats inside and twenty under the apple trees, a kitchen that cooks from the shop, and a rule that the breakfast stops at half past eleven and lunch starts at noon so that the kitchen gets half an hour.
Breakfast is the farm breakfast: two of our eggs any way, the Pendoylan bacon and sausage, a field mushroom, a tomato from the tunnel in season, bread from the bakery, £9.50; or a bacon roll, porridge with the orchard honey, or eggs on toast. Lunch is a soup from the day's vegetables with bread, a pie from the butchery (steak and ale, lamb and leek, a vegetable one), and the plate of the day, which is whatever Nia brought down from the field cooked simply with something from the counter: £11, children's plates half price. Cakes from the farmhouse kitchen; the bara brith has a following. Coffee from a Cardiff roaster, tea in a pot, the dairy's milk, the orchard's apple juice pressed in October.
No bookings, because the orchard has room; a group of ten or more, ring and we will put tables together. Dogs on leads everywhere, muddy boots everywhere, high chairs and a box of toys by the stove. The café is step-free from the yard and the orchard is grass. In summer the strawberry pickers come in for cream; in December the Christmas tree buyers come in for mulled apple. Open nine to four, seven days.
What you get
- The farm breakfast £9.50: our eggs, Pendoylan bacon and sausage
- Lunch from noon: soup, a butchery pie, the plate of the day at £11
- Cakes from the farmhouse kitchen; the bara brith
- Coffee from a Cardiff roaster; the orchard's apple juice
- Thirty seats inside, twenty in the orchard; no bookings
- Dogs, boots, children and prams welcome
What it costs
The farm breakfast £9.50, a bacon roll £5.20, soup and bread £6.50, the lunch plate £11, cake £3.60, a flat white £3.20. Children's plates half price. No bookings; the orchard has room. The seasonal calendar says what is in the fields this month; the boxes page builds this week's box with the total.
Questions about the café
Do you take bookings?
No, except for groups of ten or more, who should ring. There is usually a table, and the orchard has twenty more when it is dry.
Is the café open when the shop is?
Nine to four every day; the shop opens at half past eight and closes at half past five. Breakfast stops at half past eleven and lunch starts at noon.
This week's box, built in a minute, on the step on Thursday.
Small, medium or large with this week's contents listed, eggs, bread and milk if you want them, and the total before you order. By Tuesday noon; collected from Thursday or delivered Thursday and Friday within eight miles, £3.50, free over £30. No subscription.