One of the first signs of spring in Brighton is when the cafe in Pavilion Gardens opens up again after its winter shutdown. During the bleak winter months Pavilion Gardens always look as if something is missing, not quite complete, somehow rather bereft. I spotted the cafe’s tables and chairs getting their annual Spring clean and the staff getting the cafe ready for business for the new season the other day as I was walking along New Road. Sure enough a few days later cafe life had blossomed in the gardens again.
You get a front row view of the Royal Pavilion’s splendour from the cafe across the grass lawn. Living so close to the Royal Pavilion its easy to become complacent about this eastern style palace with its minarets and domes plonked right in the middle of town. Seated at the cafe you get a chance to appreciate it anew.
The cafe describes itself as ‘an oasis in the heart of the city’ and that’s just exactly what it is. As much as I love all the buzz of Brighton I’m often to be found just a stone’s throw away from all the crowds, shops and traffic in the gardens between the Royal Pavilion and New Road. The cafe has been there since 1941 and has been run by the same family making it as much of a Brighton institution as the Royal Pavilion opposite. Its cream painted art deco style building is just as an iconic structure to Brighton cafe lovers. The engaging history of the cafe over the years is told on the two boards on the cafe’s southern wall.
On the cafe patio a friendly squirrel 
will be after your cake if you’ve got some. though its their fruit and coconut rock cakes that the cafe is best known for. There are always a few free newspapers to read and a loyalty card has been introduced for regulars. Not quite sure what the hedge elephant is all about but it appeared a few years ago and seems to have found a home on the patio.
Life slows down a pace when you’re sitting here but there’s plenty to see as people cut through the gardens for a leafy short cut between the museum and the Lanes. The international students are here in their hoards now too flocking through the gardens on their way to see the Pavilion as part of their itinerary. For a bit of musical diversion there’s always a busker or two playing in the path that winds through the gardens. There are at least fifty two types of tree in the gardens all ready to start budding another season including Magnolia, Pride of India, Weeping Cherry, Sugar Maple and Oriental Plane. Some of them offer dappled light while you enjoy your tea or coffee in the fresh air on the terrace. All the seating is outdoors so this is a cafe for those who embrace the outdoors. That and its peaceful ambience are probably the main reasons I return especially in those first budding days of spring.
A while back Queen’s Park Books published Tea Time Tales featuring regulars recounting their stories of the cafe over the many years that it has been in business.
Cafe Dharma 