Cafe 1809 - Hildenborough

Café 1809 (pronounced ‘one eight oh nine’ after its founders winning race number) has come to be called simply ‘Kelly’s Café’ (again, after its founder and probably because it’s easier to remember.) and is one I have been meaning to visit for a while. So when a friend suggested popping in there for lunch I had to say yes.

The main room is on two levels, the counter and majority of tables on the same level as the door and a raised platform with a few more tables on one side of the room. The room is well spaced and light, partly owing to the beautiful borrowed light that takes up a third of the room (with a view of the clear sky today that brings to mind countless inspirational quotes I'm sure founder Kelly Holmes would be proud of) and fills the room with natural light, it is under this light that I sat for the first half of my meal, enjoying the light and looking at all the interesting items in the stacked crates serving as a display case next to us. The whole room is dotted with interesting knick-knacks from paintings to clocks shaped like bikes and different shaped and sized mugs. The space in decorated in earthy browns and greys giving it a half earthy half industrial feel, large bare metal girders helping the latter.

For the first half of my lunch (while sat under the borrowed light) I had an amazing hot chocolate with marshmallows and here is the first thing I love I want to point out. Café 1809 not only does hot chocolate but the very smart waitress informed me that they do milk hot chocolate (at 58%) and not one but two types of dark hot chocolate (at 70% and 85%) AND white! Choices, choices… As always, I accompanied my hot drink with a cheese sandwich but since the plain cheese sandwich only seems to be on the children’s menu, when it arrived I got a surprise. Whilst my friend’s sandwiches were accompanied by smart salads covered in a lovely dressing MY sandwich came cut into triangles and separated by piles of popcorn! This is certainly a first for me but a tasty first!

It was at this point in the lunch that the table next to us got up and left, this table was surrounded by sofas so of course we switched tables immediately (don’t pretend you wouldn't  do the same!) to eat our second course in comfort. My second course was another hot chocolate (70%) and a piece of Rocky Road from the gorgeous dessert bar up on the counter, full of all sorts of home-made desserts that make it very hard to choose! Next to this is also a juice bar for juicers of you out there!

All in all I really enjoyed my lunch at Café 1809, the smartly dressed staff are a pleasure, the food is delightful and the space aesthetically pleasing, highly recommended! 

Twitter: @Cafe1809
Facebook: facebook.com/Cafe-1809-Hildenborough-891302637566330
Website: cafe1809.co.uk
Address: 152-154 Tonbridge Road, Hildenborough, TN11 9HW