SCONE SPY
The undercover cafe critic
IT’S funny how areas change. They’re either on the way up... or on the way down.
They might have been gentrified and gone a bit to seed. Or been a bit down at heel and pulled themselves up by the bootstraps – although I’ve never been quite sure what bootstraps are to be honest.
And the character can change remarkably. I’m in Finnieston in Glasgow, which even by remarkable change standards has really gone to town.
It’s now the hipster capital of the country. You know, beardy, trendy, achingly cool.
What a transformation. In the olden days it saw the River Clyde’s glory years as the world’s shipbuilding capital and the Finnieston Crane still proudly dominates the skyline.
In more recent times it was more of a sort of downbeat no man’s land between the city centre and the trendy West End.
Now, though, it’s become the “in” place to live among the young and happening. Maybe not so much the old and happened.
That’s meant a surge in coffee shops. Whenever a wee shop shuts you can pretty much guarantee someone will be carrying in sacks of beans and a cappuccino machine with a gleeful eye on making a tidy profit.
All that being said, we’ve found a small issue. Did I say small issue? I meant giant problem. Three cafes peered into – not a scone to be had in any of them.
What’s going on? Do hipsters hate scones? Is there hipster horror at the thought of crumby beards?
Then, thankfully, scone sanity reigns. Seb and Mili looks no less on-trend and chic than the rest, but there, proudly on a big plate on the counter, is a pile of the little gems.
It’s a bakery – you can see it out back – so the wooden shelves to the left are filled with every kind of bread – sourdough, honeyspelt, rye and caramel.
Everything possible, they say, is made on the premises, including the home-cured bacon in the eggs baked in a clay ramekin which I select.
My dining companion orders a mozzarella, roast tomato and pesto toasted sandwich.
We head up the wooden stairs and grab stools at the curved balcony overlooking the busy road outside. The scone arrives first on a wooden cheeseboard, not a plate, with a generous dish of blueberry jam. It’s just on the right side of crumbly and very fruity.
The eggs are sensational, creamy and with chunks of lovely bacon. The sandwich is scrummy, too. With a coffee and soft drink it comes to £16.
As we sit back nicely full, surveying the few remaining crumbs from the scone, we can’t help but think the other hipster joints don’t know what they’re missing.