Art and Calm at the Laing Art Gallery

RACHEL FLINT ventured to the Laing Art Gallery for culture and coffee.

Today I took a long overdue trip to Newcastle's Laing Art Gallery in an attempt to absorb some of the toon's highbrow artistic culture, and to receive a much needed morning hit of coffee.
I was to be drinking alone, and as an experienced lone-coffee guzzler, I had learnt to always be armed with reading material - so I stopped off at the City Library and picked up a battered copy of Evelry Waugh's 'Scoop'.

The Laing Art Gallery cafe is a cultural delight. Scattered all around the peaceful café are a multitude of display cases featuring a dozen, or so, pieces of artwork, mostly revolving around a tea and coffee based theme.

A beautiful statue forms the centrepiece of the café, which is littered with spacious tables and a dozen relaxing sofa-styled chairs, suitable for families and couples to relax in over a cup of mid-afternoon coffee.

At this time the café was fairly quiet, calm and tranquil. As I sat down on a seat opposite the counter I was immediately put at ease, due mostly to the fact that there appeared to be no children – at last I have found an adult only coffee shop in Newcastle.

It was beautifully quiet, all I could hear was the quiet buzz of cultured conversations from the nearby tables, and the sound of an old lady slurping her steaming coffee whilst pouring over her Jackie Collins, and pausing mud page to devour a large slice of decadent chocolate cake.

For me, this café was heaven. Far from the bustling, noisy, high street Starbuck’s chain, that has become my home-from-home over the past few weeks. Here, I could relax, dip into my book, and loose myself for an hour, knowing that at the end I could get up and venture into the gallery to experience more cultural time, without being hassled, or bothered, by women with prams, or rowdy teenagers slurping on their caffeine charged mocha frappicinos.
For the staff, I may as well have been the Queen on a state visit. At the counter I was addressed as ‘Mam’, by a rather over polite gentleman, and once served I wasn’t once disturbed, which was frankly delightful.

My only qualm - and to most people this would be a rather small thing, but for me it has become a regular annoyance – was that I couldn’t drink the coffee. I am lactose intolerant, and when I asked for Soya milk the man looked at me like I had asked for a coconut in my tea. So, annoyingly I didn’t get coffee, and had to watch in agony as the old ladies around me indulged in their foamy cappuccinos and frothy lattes, while I slurped at my fizzy, over priced diet coke.

As I left the café, in a state of calm that I hadn’t felt for years, but still feeling the headache from my panging caffeine withdrawal, I reflected on how pleasant it had been to try somewhere new, and undoubtedly more cultured than Starbuck’s for my morning break. It had been wonderful to just relax, and even more wonderful to read, and then to visit the world-renowned Japanese Wave exhibition, and see Hokusai’s Under the Wave.
However, walking out of the gallery, my addiction took over and I found myself making a beeline for the steamy doors of Starbuck’s, and was soon uttering the robotic sentence: “One tall sugar free vanilla Soya latte, please” – my overdraft will hate me.


Details:

Name: The Laing Art Gallery Cafe

Address: Ground Floor of the Laing Art Gallery, Opposite City Library, New Bridge Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8AG

Atmosphere: Friendly, relaxed, cultured.

Licensed to Sell Alcohol: No

Food: Cakes, snacks, sandwiches, good range of hot food (some gluten and lactose free)

Prices: Reasonable: Large Cappuccino £2.30, Large Latte £2.30, Toasted Panini £3.50, Stotties £2.90, Jacket potatoes from £2.50.

Cafe Notes Rating: 2.5 stars - would have been a 4 if I could have had coffee.