Dean Bailey stops off at PureKnead, Whitley Bay
Park View in Whitley Bay has come a long way since I used to get my hair cut at Graham’s down the road.
It’s not that long ago you would have struggled to find more than a plain ham sandwich and a polystyrene cup filled with instant. Now there is the brilliant Papa Ganoush Middle Eastern kitchen and a handful of seriously good coffee shops. One of them, PureKnead, is at the top end of the trendy coffee shop scale with its timber-decked walls, boxes stacked high with fresh breads and pastries, decorative sacks of flour, oil and jam for sale in little stacks on narrow shelves.
At its heart is a display cabinet of treats including chocolate tarts, brownies, pies and cakes, their names scrawled in white window pen across the glass.
Sandwiches are top-notch and our BLT is served in ciabatta baked that day with proper salted butter heaped into every nook and cranny melting over the crisp bacon. The chicken and mushroom pie is excellent – shortcrust pastry filled to the top with plenty of chicken and earthy mushrooms – while the coffee by Square Mile in London is sublime.
We ate our cake sitting at the window enjoying watching drivers struggle to parallel park outside. A chocolate brownie with raspberry and cream cheese and a chunk of salted caramel tart set the seal on a happy morning. More brownies and a fairy bun came home too, along with a loaf of sea salt and rosemary sourdough.
Two coffees, a BLT, a pie and cakes came in at £20 – a steal for quality like this. Go…
PureKnead, 52 Park View, Whitley Bay, NE26 3QW, tel 07964 864 181 www.pure-knead
