AT BICESTER, BRUNCH FAVES READY ALL DAY

Listen to the humming yet silenced beat of traffic in the middle of uptown Cebu. Comfortably slouch on a couch while reading a novel. Enjoy a cup of coffee with your favorite read. Whether it be roasted or specialty, with or without matcha or even with a spritz of alcohol, one is free to choose and create the perfect match of coziness in his own cup.

Inspired by Bicester Village in Oxfordshire located 40 minutes away by train from London is Cebu’s very own homegrown piece of peace in the middle of the city: Bicester Cafe.

“It’s named after a place in the UK, a shopping district. That’s where I got my inspiration because I’m really the type of person who loves coffee and shopping. Since I found comfort in shopping and coffee, we decided to put up a café that somehow gives comfort to everyone who enters,” said Rejzl Awit, one of the owners of Bicester Cafe.

The cafe is owned by a father and daughter tandem, Rejzl and her father Jerome Awit who decided to merge traditional comforting flavors with modern industrial and minimalist interior decor to create a place where people of different ages can relax with coffee, cocktails, pastries and brunch.

Aside from the fact that Bicester prides itself in serving specialty coffee, the cafe offers craft beer and is the first of its kind in Cebu which offers coffee with cocktails. The mixture is for those who wish for an early morning kick or for those who wish to unwind at the end of the day. However, the cafe admits that coffee with cocktails is still under experimentation and that the newest line of coffee with cocktails will finally be added in its menu in a few days.

“I actually got that idea from the UK. The coffee shops there sell liquor. I thought it would be nice to put in something like that here but we don’t want to be a drinking place. That’s why we choose the alcohol we serve. We just serve craft beer and cocktails,” said Rejzl.

One other favorite thing that people love about the newly opened cafe is that Bicester also serves breakfast dishes for the entire day. The cafe serves rice meals such as its chorizo rice topped with poached egg and staple breakfast comfort food such as pancakes and waffles. Some of the crowd favorites are Bicester’s chicken and waffle dish which is made up of waffles topped with chicken strips, and their banana pancakes which are made up of three thick and fluffy layers of pancakes topped with chocolate syrup.

The cafe also serves pastas, pastries and desserts and most especially matcha-flavored combinations such as its wellloved matcha coffee (green tea mixed with coffee), matcha green tea frappe and matcha donut. Obviously in Bicester, there’s much love for matcha.

Check out Bicester Cafe located at Mahogany Place along Pope John Paul II Ave., Cebu City. The cafe is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.