Café Newton

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• Average price 2 courses: £9
• House wine: £11.50 per bottle

• High point: Dreamy desserts that melt in the mouth
• Low point: Eye watering lemon pressé
• Food served: Mon-Sun noon-2.30pm [coffee & cakes served: 10am-4.30pm]
• Open since: 1999
• Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least 25% of menu), Childrens high chairs, Wheelchair access

The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 is now in the shops.

This review is from the 2007 edition.

Unlike its sister cafés at the Modern Art and Portrait Galleries, the Dean Gallery café offers table service. Dining here is a rather more sophisticated affair than at the other galleries, with dark wooden walls, mirrors and high-backed Mackintosh-style chairs doing much to reinforce this feeling. Serving teas, coffees and a range of cakes and tray-bakes throughout the day, Café Newton is popular with gallery visitors and locals alike. At lunchtime, local workers are also drawn by the menu, which presents simple ideas in an imaginative way. In lesser hands, salad platters and sandwiches can limp off the plate. Here, they're bursting with flavour. Choose from meaty options such as smoked chicken, roasted pepper and basil or Parma ham and mozzarella, or veggie fillings like aubergine, feta and olives, or goat's cheese and rocket. All are served on a choice of rosemary focaccia, granary bread or baguette. The hot food options change daily, with kedgeree, chorizo stew and vegetable lasagne among the favourites. The 'special gateau', so-called because they make a different one each day, deserves the name for taste alone.