There are innumerable abstrusities in the world of food and drink. One is that Halen Môn still plays second fiddle to Maldon in the upmarket salt stakes; another is that people get riled up about mince on toast, a totally normal dish. The one plaguing me now is that it’s taken until 2026 for London to get a Welsh café, one that sells Purple Moose beer to go with all the mince. The void was a ponderance while I wrote the first news story about its arrival and it cropped up again while visiting.
Bara, in Peckham, is a celebration of Wales, its farmers and suppliers. The seafood specialist Câr-y-Môr makes an appearance, as does Coaltown, a coffee collective in the old mining stronghold of Ammanford. I think sandwiches tend to pair best with beer and so enter Tiny Rebel lager, the best thing to come out of Newport since Michael Sheen. A bottle with a “Swansea breakfast”, or toasted focaccia of smoked bacon, Blas y Tir leeks, cockles and laverbread, would be sheer sublimity. Nevertheless, and considering I hadn’t gone gentle into the good night the evening before, it was impossible to forgo the Caerphilly cheesesteak, a Welsh take on the Philadelphia classic and yet a thing that, curiously, hasn’t been invented until now. It’s a simple premise, adding green alliums and switching from American to Welsh cheese, but no less a genius one.
