One thing about the Café is that it's self-service, In fact it's help-yourself generally. The kitchen shelves are open, and the cooking facilities freely available.

There are some ropey cooks about, but that's no problem, because you can just make something to suit yourself and the people you get into conversation with.

Every now and again someone walk in wrapped up in an impenetrable cloak and starts whinging about how there isn't a proper menu, and all the best people who know how to cook have gone off somewhere else - but you just have to treat that as a kind of freelance cabaret act that's a bit long in the tooth.

Remember, it is better to set fire to your whiskers than to curse the darkness. Try it some time.