Café Eros

Café Eros is so relaxing; it’s quiet, cool, and clean– remarkably so as everything’s painted white! It’s quite small, but rarely busy (I think this place is one of those well kept secrets) and the service is really good. We tend to retreat to this little place for a post-​shopping pot of tea, but the food is very nice; quite fancy and perfect for lunch. There’s wifi internet available and I think this, together with the peaceful atmosphere and posh nosh attracts the be-​suited customers who can often be seen, complete with briefcase, netbook, and cappuccino, looking up only to ‘tsk’ at the occassional scraping of a chair: the acoustics of this place are a bit messed up.

Ooh, I say. Ooh er missus. Good gracious. Add any additional generic stiff upper lip phrases associated with a discomfort at overt sexuality you see fit. Café Eros is named after the Greek god of sexual love, beauty, liberation, fertility, all that stuff that involves being naked and inhibition-​free. His Roman mate was Cupid, that irresponsible sod we can blame all those poor romantic choices we’ve made in the past on. Inexplicable crush? Behaving like a donut? It’s Cupid’s fault. We have no autonomy when it comes to affairs of the heart, no siree.
Well, if you’re feeling sexy you can get yourself down to the National Conservation Centre (the sort of place free love originates — come on, plants, environment, hippies, clotheslessness, you get the picture) to chug on your cappuccino below the image of a naked man. As we all like to do from time to time. The museum itself is great and its little café is the perfect addition, with great food at even greater prices. Their simple main meals will set you back much less than a fiver, with a choice of quiche, soups, salads, sarnies and so on, and cakey goodness ranges from £1.50-£2.25. It’s all very delicious too. Meanwhile no hot drink is more than £2 (pah! Take that, Starbucks, Nero, Costa, all you villains) and the only cold drink exceeding that price tag is either the traditional lemonade whose zing is worth the extra pocket or an alcoholic beverage. Yes, in the vicinity of Eros you can be decadent and indulge in the nectar of humble grapes or hops. Bliss.
I tell a lie actually — their ‘wickedly rich hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows’ will cost you £2.20. Temptation… it makes fools of us all.
Hey, you yourself might even feel like a god or goddess here. The service is fab and if you bring a child here (you might have to deal with some immature giggling over man parts if you do, be warned… the same goes for bringing me) it’s a family friendly ambience, plus there are highchairs aplenty for the littluns. Free wi-​fi completes the quintessential cultured café experience. This is one of those eateries worth visiting even if you aren’t looking round the museum.