Metrodeco (Brighton)

We've walked past & peered through Metrodeco's windows several times before - admiring it's charm, decor and comfy looking furniture; quietly jealous of contented omni customers sipping drinks and enjoying cake inside.

Why don't we get afternoon tea at the seaside too? Actually it seems we do :)

Metrodeco's an eclectic/eccentric looking tea room in Kemp Town, a 10 minute walk from the centre of Brighton and short stroll from the beach. Not only have we walked past previously but stayed twice at Paskins on the same road. Thanks to a tip off from the Interweb & prior notice instructions on their site we phoned at booked the evening before (whilst gorging ourselves on what the waiter at Terre-a-terre described as "quite a lot of food"!).

4pm on a Saturday in November and the place was almost full, so we were pleased to see that they'd reserved some of the comfiest looking armchairs for us. Tea selection's impressively large and those that we tried were good (high praise for a tea hater like me) - @cherrivalentine regrets not buying some for home.

I'm never quite sure how much food to expect for afternoon tea, but advice for Metrodeco is to go hungry! Portion size is generous and more than just a snack - have a light lunch and book dinner for later in the evening, or else you may be forced into the same travesty / crime against veganism by not being able to eat all the cake!

How cool is that? Far from being the weirdos in the corner with our weirdo food, our's looked as good or better than anything other people were eating.

We started with the sandwiches - pesto & artichoke were my favourite. The bread was fresh and flavours good. Hummous made its obligatory appearance but it there's nothing wrong with that if there's variety too.

The scones looked the part and cut easily. They could have done with being over so slightly moister, but it was a good effort all the same.

We were pleased to see that they've vegan spread - if in the future they had rice whip too it'd be scone perfection.

And onto the cake - which was nothing short of stunning. Moist, crumbly texture, not too sweet and oodles of flavour. If you don't go for a full afternoon tea I highly recommend going for a slice of cake and cup of tea (though ring to check they've vegan cake in).

Supposedly our vegan version was smaller than their standard afternoon tea, so they dropped the standard price of £18 a head to £15 for the vegan version, which we think's very reasonable indeed!

We'll definitely return when next in the area and in the meantime suggest that you do too! Metrodeco's an example of omnis doing vegan food right. Looking forward to trying it in summer whilst it's still light outside.