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| Full Moon Menu |
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| It dosen't get any better than this |
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| Regular patron snug in his natural habitat |
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| The Beaker of Ribena |
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| A Peak inside Nirvana |
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| Avocado and Prawns with buttered triangles |
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| Grilled Trout with Salad and Chips |
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| The Birthday girls let rip |
#12 One Dozen
A Place to Call Home
Some girls are bigger than others, some days are better than others, sometimes your instinct is to recoil from life's harsher edges and simply feel cosseted, fed and watered by a friendly face. A place where you can be left quietly to ponder life's intricate meandering web of ups and downs.
The development of Comfort Food is a testament to those such days and there are few locations in London that could compete with Chez Nous in a Comfort Relay Race.This snug cafe restaurant is one of a kind, proudly a family run business and fantastically not part of any chain, it retains the idiosyncratic charm to seduce and cosset.Opening early in the morning till late at night, it covers the traditional breakfast hangover to a twilight cheese toastie.
Supporting a local community with a fascinating cross section of the social demographic of Belsize Park, Chez Nous is frequented by builders, actresses, community workers, artists, accountants, hippies, vagrants and vicars. It certainly is a local institution, a haven for regular faces and sometimes for those less fortunate, who pop in gratefully to discreetly receive free food, for their daily nourishment. It is a place with a heart and a soul and though the young female staff seem to change frequently, a common thread runs through their smiling, courteous happy spirit, which radiates in their service.
Educated travellers drop by and freely pass on their tips while some other patrons mentor and counsel over a cup of tea, safe in the bosom of Chez Nous.The layout is intriguing too with a single long bench seat and tables facing across the room to the adjoining customers. This gives a sense of being part of a life stage or tv documentary, while the ambience is so relaxing this never feels intrusive.
The decor and use of materials may not appear at first glance to be anything to write home about, but dont be fooled. This is the beauty of Chez Nous, it dosen't need to try too hard, because it is true to itself and has over the years, moulded into a snug, homely, non precious intimate form of existence.
The menu is extensive and perfect. It reeks of comfort food. The food is nothing but homely and comes in a generous proportion, cleverly avoiding life's tricky decisions by coming with both salad and chips. The plates are served with the perfect just-what-you-need condiments on hand.
In the 21st century it is evident we as consumers have learned from America and an overly spoiled economy to be more demanding and exacting. Chez Nous knows how to counter this excessive expectancy and helps you to understand that sometimes, the little things in life that usually go unnoticed, are actually more important than the seemingly bigger self important things.
There can be no better testament to Chez Nous than finishing this blog and by mentioning these observations :
- an elderly customer given a doggy bag in a plain white plastic handle carrier to take home, with a little cake for pudding enclosed inside a polystyrene beaker.
- a patron depositing ice cubes with her fingers into her beaker of wine.
- the maitre d' serving a surprise birthday cake with pretty candles lit up and wrapped in pink ribbon, to a table of four excitable ladies.
http://www.thank-the-lord-chez-nous-has-not-got-a-website.com
