Food: Ripe Kitchen

Ripe Kitchen

What with summer actually starting, a wander around Primrose Hill is always a nice way to while away an afternoon. I was invited to newly opened Ripe Kitchen, the brain child of self confessed health food nut couple, Tom Burdon and Yulia Davidenko who have uprooted long standing Primrose Patisserie and taken a healthy slice out of Regents Park Road’s parade of cutesy cakes with their mostly vegetarian and vegan fare. 

Apple and fennel salad

The produce is bought in fresh every morning from New Covent garden market. The pumpkin and couscous salad was forgivably bland made so with the perplexing addition of cooked tomato. A sour Granny Smith might have been a better stand in for the sweeter apple in the walnut and fennel salad but the hit was the pleasant, if out of season earthy pear and beetroot salad.

beetroot and pear

Everything is made in house, bar the bread. Organic sour doughs and granaries are delivered daily by Seven Seeded bakery. Two pieces of the crusty chewy sourdough were clamped around slices of beefy tomato and melted mozzarella, given a gentle garlic kick by the homemade kale pesto. 

Seven Seeded sourdough sandwich

Inside: white and woody vibe

The sun was out and The Primrose Hill set, micro dogs in tow were lapping up the buzzy new café: the front is angled perfectly to catch the rays, and blankets are draped over the chairs for chillier days. Inside? A welcoming white and woody vibe, cosied up with a brick fireplace.

Square mile Coffee

Tom explained their reasons for opening “We needed a good coffee in the morning and couldn’t find one”. Step forward reliably smooth Square Mile beans. Tom nabbed baristas from Soho’s Flat White to ensure the coffee art is perfectly ‘rosetted’ every time. We mopped up the froth with a perfectly purple threaded banana cake. Vegans? Try the dairy free, gluten free moist brownies.

Energy Boost Tea

White Jasmine Neroli

But it’s the tea here that stands out. Tom and Yulia had fun experimenting to make the seven blends of handmade flavours, displayed like miniature popery, to sniff out a preferred flavour. White jasmine neroli was fragrantly cleansing and the orange blossom hinted a delicate sweetness. More interesting was The Energy Boost. It arrived potion green, tinted by superfood spirulina, a type of seaweed and spiced with ginger and fruity mango. The glass teapots and sand timer for stewing time cemented the wizardry.

Chia Seed Pot

Tempted by the breakfast menu and attempting a self-prescribed health kick, I popped back to try chia seed. Chia what? Home soaked in almond milk, apparently it’s the new flax seed with tonnes of health benefits and things that sound like they hail from the periodic table. Topped with berries and banana, it had the appearance and texture of dwarfed frogspawn. With a hint of toasted nut flavour and was a surprisingly good summer substitute for porridge. 

Cafes stack up like sardines along this stretch but I think Ripe kitchen is the perfect healthy option if the thought of preparing and lugging a picnic to a patch of grass on Primrose Hill is an irksome one.

Ripe Kitchen
136 Regents Park Road