I have been dying to try out Arbour ever since I walked past it last week...and today was my day. I have a small confession to make, though: although the point of this blog is to find the ultimate coffice, today I went sans laptop. So no work for me - instead, I had lunch with my mom. A stolen pleasure at the best of times, since our get togethers usually centre of Leya and trying to stop her from pulling the flowers off my mother's plants (I have tried to tell my mother that this may be the start of a successful horticultural career if we can just harness Leya's habits, but she's having none of it). Today, we had the added delight of sneaking off during work hours.
It's probably a good thing I wasn't intending to meet any deadlines, since the first thing that hit me was the chatter. There was only one table available - the rest were taken up by middle-aged women who, judging by the volume and volubility of their conversations, haven't seen each other for a while. Probably not a great place to come for some quiet working time, then...but if you're looking for an awesome place to have a girl's catch up, this would be it.
As befits a place named for trees, the décor is cool and green and botanical.
The food was amazing. Arbour specialises in crepes, but these are a far cry from the rubber pancake offerings one usually sees on menus - so, when I ordered a filling of creamy wild mushrooms and gruyere, it was as far from the usual Denny whites with pasty béchamel as Rihanna is from Janis Joplin. The crepe (or galette, to be precise, since it was savoury) was thinly wrapped around a filling that was chunky and thick, and filled every corner of my mouth with flavour. My mother, meanwhile, had a duck and cherry galette - again, it was as comforting as a hug from someone you love, with a contrast of sweet and savoury that played on my tongue. For a moment we became grunting savages, incapable of any conversation besides "mmm, grrrmmmmm, grrmmmmmm, grmmmmm, ummmm," we were so concentrated on our pancakes.
You'd have thought one gigantic, rich dish would be enough for me, but one thing I have always admired about myself is my ability to push on - so I had a salted caramel pancake with apples and ginger ice cream. To be honest, I couldn't taste the caramel, and apples leave me cold, but the ice cream was amazing; a completely unusual and unexpected taste that left a tantalising prickle at the back of your throat.
My verdict: Maybe not the best place for serious work, but really worth it for outstanding food and pretty surroundings - choose it for your next girls' brunch.
Work files:
The people: None of the usual cofficing creative here; it's all ladies who lunch with set hair.
Wi-fi: Embarrassingly, I forgot to ask!
The coffee: Excellent.
The vibe: More of a place to talk about how the kids are doing than for setting out the proposal that's going to turn you into a millionaire.
64 St Andrews Road, Cnr Wrenrose Ave
011 788 4111
It's probably a good thing I wasn't intending to meet any deadlines, since the first thing that hit me was the chatter. There was only one table available - the rest were taken up by middle-aged women who, judging by the volume and volubility of their conversations, haven't seen each other for a while. Probably not a great place to come for some quiet working time, then...but if you're looking for an awesome place to have a girl's catch up, this would be it.
As befits a place named for trees, the décor is cool and green and botanical.
The food was amazing. Arbour specialises in crepes, but these are a far cry from the rubber pancake offerings one usually sees on menus - so, when I ordered a filling of creamy wild mushrooms and gruyere, it was as far from the usual Denny whites with pasty béchamel as Rihanna is from Janis Joplin. The crepe (or galette, to be precise, since it was savoury) was thinly wrapped around a filling that was chunky and thick, and filled every corner of my mouth with flavour. My mother, meanwhile, had a duck and cherry galette - again, it was as comforting as a hug from someone you love, with a contrast of sweet and savoury that played on my tongue. For a moment we became grunting savages, incapable of any conversation besides "mmm, grrrmmmmm, grrmmmmmm, grmmmmm, ummmm," we were so concentrated on our pancakes.
You'd have thought one gigantic, rich dish would be enough for me, but one thing I have always admired about myself is my ability to push on - so I had a salted caramel pancake with apples and ginger ice cream. To be honest, I couldn't taste the caramel, and apples leave me cold, but the ice cream was amazing; a completely unusual and unexpected taste that left a tantalising prickle at the back of your throat.
My verdict: Maybe not the best place for serious work, but really worth it for outstanding food and pretty surroundings - choose it for your next girls' brunch.
Work files:
The people: None of the usual cofficing creative here; it's all ladies who lunch with set hair.
Wi-fi: Embarrassingly, I forgot to ask!
The coffee: Excellent.
The vibe: More of a place to talk about how the kids are doing than for setting out the proposal that's going to turn you into a millionaire.
64 St Andrews Road, Cnr Wrenrose Ave
011 788 4111
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