After a two hour train journey, I am finally here, my
reason for travelling all this way today! Years ago (lets not say how many!) an
old friend brought me here, to Utopia Coffee Lounge for a cup of hot chocolate.
I don’t really remember much from that trip, I dropped a piece of his jewelry
into a white hot chocolate and almost fell down the stairs but I do remember really
enjoying being here though, it was fun and different and I was at the beginning
of discovering my love of tea and cafes and tearooms. I like to think that this
place, along with The Nutmeg Tearoom, started the wheels turning for this very
blog years before I put pen to paper to review for the first time.
Being back in here,
its every bit as bright and fun and exciting as I remembered, every inch is covered
in art, whether in a frame or painted directly on to the walls (like the wall
opposite me with the name of the café on it in huge graffiti style letters) or
even hanging from the ceiling. In the upstairs section, (where I have decided
to sit because the downstairs is full to bursting!) there are garlands and
flags and even a canoe hung from the walls and ceiling. All the furniture is
mis-matched and huddled around tables of varying types from small dining tables
and low coffee tables to the crate at the chairs next to me and the old-fashioned
television that serves as my table (yes, really!) I particularly like the
gravity-defying golden syrup cans hung from the ceiling that have fake flowers ‘growing’
downwards from them.
I’m really curious
about the nine clocks that hang above the stairs, all identical but showing
different times…interesting. I have to say, as much as I love the way this mad
collection of colours and shapes looks, the
not one, not two but three open umbrellas hanging from the ceiling makes the superstitious
side of me a little uncomfortable. However,
like everything else in here, they just seem to fit and pull the look together.
With its brick, but certainly not bare, walls and high metal ceilings, the
Utopia Coffee Lounge could have a rustic, almost warehouse-ish feel to it so
easily but full off colour, art and expression as it is, its more of a hippie
haven than a dull cube.
My tea, a breakfast
tea from Pavillion Garden is lovely but the cake is a real masterpiece. At a glance it looks like your
average absolutely gorgeous three layer Victoria Sponge cake but actually it’s
a taste explosion (a phrase here used with 100% honesty and no irony) of blackcurrant
and lime, lime! It is really delicious and the slice they gave me, the last
slice, is far too big, I wish I had a friend here to share it with me! This is
just one of the amazing cakes on the serving counter downstairs, they are all a
different, Blackcurrent and lime, peanut butter and white chocolate and many
more!
The décor is so
colourful and different from anywhere else I have ever been. The staff are
smiling and friendly and up for chat and the food and drink are delicious. I can
definitely see meeting friends here once a week for a catch up and to try all
the exciting cake flavors on the counter, if only I lived closer…
Facebook: Facebook.com/Utopiass
Address: The Royals,
High St Unit 2, Southend-On-Sea, SS1 1DG