Bear + Wolf achieves the uncommon feat of making a cafe appealing both to parents and children and to those without child as well. The name says as much: an air of the fairytale about it, but not too sickly.
For the little ‘uns, there’s a whole room for them – just for them – and it’s full of toys and potential new playmates. But no less exciting is that through the door in the main café you find all the trappings of adulthood: Edison bulbs, cucumber-infused water within arm’s reach, great coffee, long communal tables with adults sitting at them, many of them brazenly childless, some even with laptops on and work underway. Some might even talk to you.
I recommend the bacon toast, which is unexpectedly (I should read the menu) laced with Tabasco; it blows your head off, but in a good way. The breakfast berry smoothie is everything you want it to be and more, and they even make a bacon and egg butty worth mentioning in print, which surely doesn’t happen every day of the week. If you’re there for lunch, the shepherds pie is a stalwart standard-bearer for modern British cuisine.
Go there at once, and take your toddler with you – but you’ll be just fine without one, too.