Cafe — Castle Quarter, Cardiff
Speciality coffee, proper Welsh bakes and brunch until three. No rush. That's rather the point.
Read the menuMorning light through the arcade glass. A counter you can lean on. The hiss of the steam wand and somebody's dog asleep under table four.
We opened in 2019 with one machine, a family bara brith recipe and a stubborn belief that Cardiff deserved somewhere to sit still. The regulars arrived and, mercifully, never left. The paper gets read here. Crosswords get finished, eventually.
Dogs welcome. Laptops tolerated until noon.
The counter, around ten past eight.
03 — On Repeat
All day. Every day. Until four.
Our beans come from a small roastery in Bristol — close enough that they arrive days off the roast, far enough that we can blame them when the dial-in goes sideways.
The espresso stays put: chocolate, dried fruit, no surprises. The filter rotates monthly through single origins — Ethiopia, Colombia, and whatever the roaster is quietly excited about. Ask what's on. We do like being asked.
The recipe, since you asked
Saturday mornings get busy. The queue curls past the arcade window, somebody's toddler conducts it, and the bara brith sells out by half eleven. We won't apologise — but we will keep the batch filter coming while you wait.
“I've tried other cafes. It felt like cheating, so I stopped.”
— Megan, a regular, Roath
Castle Quarter
Cardiff Centre
Pontcanna
Roath
Cathays