The sister venue to the always excellent Gardener's Cottage, Quay Commons has taken on the challenge of one of the "cursed" Commercial Quay units. Much more accessible than Gardener's Cottage partly demonstrated by its focus on takeaway, both coffee and sandwiches, which is undoubtedly a good thing with 2000 civil servants a stone throw away in Victoria Quay. Still though it has a strong sit in menu with some Gardener's Cottage favourites, which for me includes the superb meatloaf as part of the breakfast. On my visit I tried the kipper and poached eggs, which was excellent. My partner had the "cooked breakfast" which was black pudding, meatloaf, bacon and eggs; again, excellent. These are not "gutbusters" - more modest portion sizes, but definitely cut above in terms of quality of ingredients. Coffee is of a high standard and while I typically love coffee served in pottery, boiling hot coffee served in beakers without handles is a real bug bear of mine.
The place is only recently opened; there were an unusually large number of staff milling around. This gave it a very slightly disorganised feel. Maybe not fair and certainly not helped by the split kitchen, with chefs and staff traipsing through the eating area with containers etc. Only other gripe, and this could be fundamental, is that this is not quite the landmark space that something of this quality needs. It's long and narrow with pillars, and a disappointingly small window area (compared to the conservatory of nearby Cafe Tartine). Hopefully they'll get some more art up on the long empty white walls.
I really hope this survives and thrives but i fear that since many other excellent set-ups have tried and failed in Commercial Quay that Quay Commons doesn't quite have the wow-factor to make it. Hope to be proved wrong. read more