Rating
In A Word
Leisurely
Appeals To
Families and people bringing their families for family activities (the kind of family activities that you do in a restaurant or coffee shop, I guess…)
Pastry and patisserie pilgrims, and people involved in the endless search for The Ultimate Piece Of Confectionary. You will never find it, but you will find fine things here indeed
Those who patronise independent food and drink outlets and have an eye for the quirkier things in life. If you have ever seriously bought antiques or accessories for your house, this might be a place that appeals to you…aesthetically
TFW You Lose Half A Day But It’s OK
Thought I’d seen ALL the quirky pastry centric restaurant/coffee/deli shop hybrids but that would have been jumping the edible and metaphorical gun and Megan’s puts me back in my place.
But what is Megan’s exactly? It’s a lot of things. What it feels like is a cross between an independent coffee shop and a somewhat (partially) Mediterranean diner…with lots of English touches.
The Atmosphere
I would use the word ‘quirky’ but it is a shit word and has been done to death. ‘Quaint’ describes it somewhat, but not closely enough. It feels somewhat Italian with blue and white checkered tables, and signs that make reference to Chianti on the walls.
Like many food-type-outlets in London, youthful beautiful foreign people make up the wait staff. The vibe is cheerful and happy – I see said staff smiling and hugging at least twice in the area around the salad bar. Customers are also radiating psychic light. All is right in the world.
It’s a social space with lots of fun nooks and crannies to hide in, plus other stuff to explore. Up front you have a coffee shop and patisserie. Head down the stairwell and you enter something that looks more like a restaurant – with a buffet, wine bottles stacked high, big tables, and pillows that spell out ‘Megan’s’.
Keep going and you end up in a garden terrace. The outdoor space looks like a shed/garden combo, but one that has been thoroughly ‘customised’ or ‘lived in.’. Haphazard enough not to be ‘slick’, but well organised enough to aesthetic. Strong.
My experience of the place is peaceful, with rain pattering on the roof above above me. Unfortunately the heat is somewhat stifling – Megan’s seems to have erred on the side of caution and consequentially the place feels a bit like a sauna. An avand garde sauna that requires that you keep your clothes on and that serves a bloody good Long Black. This ‘garden’ would be quite romantic in the evenings. They apparently did very well on Valentine’s Day
Suppose you trudge back up to the front, and look carefully, you’ll find an entrance to upstairs, and the somewhat secluded ‘Green Room’. It seats about 12 people and is often hired out for meetings, functions, that kinda stuff. It seems like a good place to host a whisky tasting (though every place is a good place to hold a whisky tasting)
Otis, our Lithuanian waiter, like most Lithuanians, is a real chill guy. He’s been there for 6 months and tells us about some of the place’s history…
The Backstory
Megan’s apparently has been on the same site for decades, and is named after its founder – a woman actually called Megan (hoho DIDNT SEE THAT COMING DID YOU?). I know little about her, but the place has a lot of history. Initially an antiques shop (the atmosphere still retains some of those touches), it became a coffee shop and then eventually a restaurant. Then at some point recently it was bought by the people who run Tossed.
Asides from Otis, we are looked after by Jo – an endlessly upbeat and friendly Pole with short side parted red hair and a rather enigmatic accent. I think she’s the manager – she seems to know ‘the score’. Do you know the score? I don’t…
The clientele is a healthy miix of young and old – not too many of those young, hip professional types but lots of multigenerational families with time to spend. Up front, people have brought babies and toddlers, whereas around the back there are older ladies doing lunch. There is also what looks like business men having a strategy meeting, two Dutch tourists in their mid 20s (taking a…lot of selfies) plus me and my buddy Paul (Of The Chocolate Poetry Club) – talking about poetry and that kinda stuff.
When I arrive there are a group of women who discuss salad and juice combinations for about half an hour and are possibly the most indecisive people in Chelsea. Jesus, just get the salmon already
Place gets super busy around 1300 for lunch – there’s a less peaceful 90 minute period or so, and then everyone has buggered off and I am still there, like that scene in Independence Day when they try to nuke the aliens but it’s not happening.
The Food & Drink
Megan’s portions are…generous and I end up with much more food than I planned to deal with on a Thursday afternoon. I think this is part of the reason I end up staying there for so long.
We get the lunch menu – which, amongst other things, sub-divides juices and smoothies – two categories I did not know were independent of each other but make a lot of sense now I think about it. It also has a coffee called a ‘Babyccino’ – which I assume is a baby cappuccino?
This menu seems to change on a daily basis – it’s freshly printed on a piece of A5 paper and also has a ‘soup of the day’ which you would quite logically infer also changes on a day by day basis.
The following sources of calories were slowly but surely whittled down to nothing…
Soup of the Day
Thick, creamy and delicious (insert sexual innuendo here). Also very filling. I (am pretty sure that I) did not order it – which makes the following meal harder to eat, but I try anyway because that’s what Tasting Britain is all about.
Salmon curry with vegetable rice
in quality, a letdown, in quantity – amazing…the amount of salmon in this was incredibly generous. The dish was somewhat watery, not bad by any means, but lacking the rich flavours you’d expect to get from a curry, or from a salmon. It’s kinda weird – like they’d somehow sucked the juices out of the fish. Tasted ‘healthy’.
Large seasonal salad
As salads go, this is an aggressive salad.
The (unplanned) Dessert
Thom, Head of Pastry and Confection Creation, eventually shows his face and gave us a rundown on Megan’s’ ‘pastry happenings’ (and there is lots happening).
He is a soft spoken Philippino guy who comes across as someone you’d find styling others in the fashion industry. Every now and then my ridiculous view in the world is spot on, and this is one of those times. Turns out that he studied at Istituto Marangoni (famous Alumni: Dolce & Gabanna, Moschino etc) before deciding to take a (fortuitous) detor into baking.
Initially, he didn’t think his plans to bake beautiful things for a living were seriously going to happen – lacking formal training and the confidence to do it. Cue a Rocky style training montage, his first break at Lola’s Cupcakes and a few years later, here we are today. The man is an artist, I do believe…
Despite being entirely full we were made (in a good way) to try these. My favourite was the brownie.
Gluten Free Brownie
My favourite. Basically just a very good brownie, the texture is thick enough to be gratifying, but not so thick as to be ‘difficult’. Almost like a cross section of SEDIMENTARY rock, there are ‘veins’ of solidified peanut butter. Like geology but food. So, not geology at all then…
Hi-Hat Marshmallow Cupcakes
With the marshmallowy middle, this one strongly reminded me of a now defunct chocolate bar from my childhood that I think came in a tree and silver rapper. I cannot for the life of me recall what it is. Food nostalgia confirmed.
Sea-salt Nutella Cookie
Holy Hedonism Batman – what is this voodoo? The salted top gives way to an entirely unexpected, chewy nutella centre. They’ve also managed to achieve the ‘American’ cookie texture – slightly brittle on the outside but on the main part, squashy and pliable.
The diabetes is strong with this one, as is the taste. Lovely.
The Verdict
Initially this was gonna be a whistlestop tour – as I was doing that thing when you try and line up a whole load of stuff in one day. But I find myself sin one of those wonderful time warps where you lose hours in conversation and what the Spanish call ‘sombre-mesa’. It is a very ‘European’ experience and perhaps an antidote to the Type A shit I seem to find myself continually immersed in. I would say this place is so leisurely that it can/will ‘leisurefy’ even the most hard charging and wound up of us.
Chill people. chill atmosphere, a fine place to exchange half a day for a good time and some happy memories. Their own ranges of Prosecco, cakes and other stuff I have forgotten about are also worth a look. I’m looking forward to seeing how the next one in St. John’s Wood comes out. And maybe seeing what a proper dinner’s like as well.
The Details
571 King’s Road, London SW6 2EB
020 7348 7139
http://megans.co.uk/
