Friday lunchtimes, if you come into the plain brick building on the sunny edge of Wyck Gardens you’re in for a big surprise! The Platform is transformed by big communal tables into a proper community café made pretty with jam jars of farm bright flowers – the very opposite of a branded homogenised chain.
Started in September as an offshoot of the Loughborough Farm community garden across the road, lunch is created using lots of farm produce. Everything is fresh and vibrant and run by volunteers who live nearby and come to help out, socialise, learn new skills or just taste a new flavour.
All the cooks are residents from the local community. Every week there’s a different menu drawing on the huge range of culinary backgrounds and skills in the area, a cracking load of great recipes and always the same starting point of coming together to eat well. The menu is vegetarian, much of it vegan, and all of it made for the day.
There is always farm produce – late summer abundance became the filling for pies and quiches and lovely salads, wilted callaloo to go with jollof rice, fresh chillies spiked thick yoghurt in which to dip crunchy pakoras. Last week cold weather was held at bay with Trinidadian corn soup and spinach dumplings, hot cheese toasties and crisp farm salad.
The space opens at 11am with a good supply of great volunteer-baked cakes and biscuits, to go with filter coffee and gorgeous teas made with dried herbs from the farm tied into pretty muslin bags. Free wifi and a scattering of plug sockets make it a pleasant place to work, meet new neighbours or simply catch up on life.
Everyone’s welcome so do drop by if you’re passing and if you’d like to be involved contact Charlotte, who oversees the whole project, charlotte_oconnor@hotmail.co.uk