a day ago
I tried café on steepest street in UK and my only complaint is it was too nice
I am not sure why it's called the 'Wilderness Café' as you can't really miss this nice little venue. The café is located on Castle Square, directly opposite the majestic Harlech Castle.
Parking near the castle was a bit of a nightmare, with several cars having to reverse down side streets, as tourists and road works blocked the narrow roads. We eventually settled on a pay and display car park near the beach and walked up the very famous steep hill.
Ffordd Pen Llech, once held the Guinness World Record for the steepest street in the world. However, it was later found that Baldwin Street in New Zealand was actually a bit steeper, and that became the new world record breaker.
Either way, we certainly burned off a few calories by walking up the steepest street in the U.K. Apart from the obvious lofty location, the café is also riding high in the Trip Advisor charts, with a number of customers loving the outdoor seating views of the castle and the yummy cakes and pizzas.
The café has a beautifully designed quirky interior with a mixture of lounge sofas and bright red tables and chairs. The dog friendly café was full with cyclists, walkers and tourists, all enjoying lunch.
The busy cafe doubles up as a gift shop and even has a Post Office counter. During the summer the ice cream kiosk also opens and serves scooping ice cream in a range of different varieties.
The menu had a range of hot food such as stone baked artisan 10' pizzas, Risotto bowls or Ciabatta sandwiches. Before 11.30am, they offer a range of breakfast items for the early bird such as a breakfast stack, which included two slices of toast, one egg, two streaky bacons, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, harsh browns and beans.
They also had a veggie and vegan breakfast stack on offer. There were all kinds of drinks on offer, such as barista specials, hot totties, chocolatiers and frosty drinks, which included milkshakes, smoothies and frappes.
They also had bar drinks such as Snowdon craft beers, Welsh cider or wine. You basically order your food at a tiny counter, which was jam packed with all manner of tempting cakes.
There were bountiful coconut cakes, carrot cakes and cherry brownies all vying for your attention in such a small counter space. We settled on a slice of Lemon Layer cake for £4.95. The lemon cake was moist, sweet, buttery, and loaded with zingy fresh lemon.
It tasted a bit like a lemon drizzle cake but with extra lemon cream smothered in between the layers of light sponge. We also saw a real show stopper of a cake on top of the display, which looked like you would put on a few calories, just by looking at it.
It turned out to be a salted caramel cake topped with an iced frosting. The dreamy light sponge was moist and was separated by layers of homemade salted caramel sauce, and an irresistibly creamy buttercream.
No crumb was spared in the journalistic pursuit to investigate the cake's ingredients. There was a sign on the wall that suggested asking for a member of the team, if you encountered a problem, rather than leaving a bad review online.
My only complaint was that the 'Hot Chocolate' was too nice. The mug was filled to the brim with fluffy cream, chocolate drizzle sauce and marshmallows. Yes, I spilled some on my t shirt, and received an inevitable glance from my wife, which said, 'I can't take him anywhere'.
My wife sipped a frothy cappuccino, as we watched more car chaos between the steepest street and castle car park. Full of cake and carbs, we noted that wewould burn less calories on the way back, as it was all downhill the legendary steepest street.
However, we did pop to the beautiful sand dunes of Harlech beach, which seemed fairly peaceful, considering the glorious weather.
The Facts
Opening Times: 9am to 4pm
Atmosphere: Buzzing with cyclists, walkers and tourists.
Car Parking: Nightmare near the castle. Unless you can reverse a car for about half a mile.
Disabled Access: Wheelchair friendly access.
Service: Order at the counter, packed with cakes.
Overall: The café on top of the steepest street in the UK.
