When visiting a posh home/old castle combo, it seems fitting to dine locally, in their back garden greenhouse.
The cafe space is next to the tourist shop and ticket sales desk — which is, in turn, a decent walk away from English Heritage’s Eltham Palace, so while essential to visit on the way in to buy tickets, quite easy to forget on the way back out.
That said, it was rather busy on this particular Sunday lunchtime, and noisy with it, although that turned out to be one family who left soon afterwards.
The cafe is very much what it looks like – an old greenhouse that’s been cleaned up a bit, but not much, with old garden chairs and tables to sit at — and it’s table service once you’ve placed an order at the entrance.
Lunch today was the sausage and bean soup with a coffee — although oddly billed as cottage pie on the receipt.
The soup was decent enough, could have done with more sausage, but satisfying for a winter weekend lunch. Might have preferred the cottage pie in hindsight.
The coffee was good, the service good, and the table wobbled only slightly.
Overall, not a bad lunch considering that they could get away with sarnies and snacks in the area.
Summary
Cost: £10.25
Stars: 3 out of 5
Date: 29th Dec 2019
Summary: Solidly decent food in a relatively interesting setting in the old greenhouse.
