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Farm Girl, Chelsea

Farm Girl in Notting Hill is a plant-based, Instagram sensation. The café regularly has queues our of their pretty courtyard.

They also have an outpost in Sweaty Betty on Carnaby Street. The inspirational founder, Rose Mann, has now opened a third branch off the Fulham Road. Last weekend I ventured to West London’s newest hot spot for Sunday Brunch.

As a huge lover of the iconic Notting Hill branch, I was keen to see if it lived up to the hype… and it did!

The setting

The Chelsea café has more of a restaurant feel than the original. You enter past a  sleek cocktail bar, lit with antique pendant lamps and go into  a leafy low-lit oasis with plush banquettes around the walls.

The decor is a mixture of bold stripes, bright green velvet and pale woods. It feels warm, upmarket and elegant. There are plenty of tables inside, plus a few outside.

Farm Girl
Farm Girl

The little things

The decor is beautiful! It has such a different feel to the Notting Hill branch with a real element of Luxury! And it feels bigger and it was easier to get a seat!

I felt like I’d been transported to a Parisian cafe with an endless choice of latte’s- there are so many to choose from!

Farm Girl

The green juice test

Farm Girl’s green juice was small but mighty! A really tasty juice, which I assume was made in house – a delightful blend of lime, apple, cucumber, parsley & spinach.

What we ate

Honestly it was a really hard choice- everything on the menu sounded so delicious. We started the meal with a Butterfly Matcha and a Lavender Latte (which for some reason I assumed would be pink, but is just gently infused with lavender).

We tucked into the Oven Baked Aubergine in a tomato and chickpea sauce with mint and tahini yoghurt dressing and a poached egg on top.

Then the Blue Jack Tacos which were the real show stopper for me- a combo of BBQ pulled jackfruit, pineapple guacamole, lettuce & egg free mayonnaise wedged in two soft blue corn tortillas. Finally, we had Berry Pancakes what’s brunch without a dessert, right? – made with buckwheat and topped with amber maple syrup, berries & coconut shavings.

What else?

I was surprised to find that there wasn’t a massive queue.

We went at 11:30am and the staff were wonderfully accommodating, but by the time we left, the hoards had started to arrive, so I would recommend getting there early to avoid a wait.

The bill

Butterfly Matcha with oat milk: £4.50
Lavender Latte with brown rice milk: £4.20
Blue jack tacos: £12.00
Oven Baked Aubergine with fried egg: £10.00
Berry Pancakes: £12.00
Green juice: £4.00

What made you glow?

The blue jack tacos were insane! Made with jack fruit, they were an incredible vegan option on the menu and I would definitely go back for more!

For our review of their Notting Hill branch click here. 

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Farm Girl, Notting Hill

 

Notting Hill’s Farm Girl is London’s bucket list healthy café with serious Instagram credentials.

But does this uber cool hotspot live up to the hype? In a word, absolutely! Founded by Australian Rose Mann, Farm Girl re-creates laid back Antipodean café culture and champions fresh and nutritionally nurturing locally-sourced ingredients. It has a serious range of fabulously flavoured plant-based foods and possibly the best selection of multi-coloured lattes in London.

Plus,  anywhere that has a turmeric latte decorated with a French bulldog has to be worth a visit…

The setting

Farm Girl is set in a small courtyard off the busy Portobello Rd. It’s a welcome haven from the crowds on market days, but do expect to queue at the weekend. The large, spacious interior is chequered with vivid turquoise and green ceramic tiles highlighted by industrial spot lights.

There are lots of tables with banquette seating along the walls. A quieter mezzanine with a few tables sits above the kitchen. Racks of fruit and spices surround the busy bar area, plus there’s additional seating in the courtyard at pretty, metal tables.

The vibe is relaxed, the staff are friendly and the customers are a mix of locals, market shoppers and tourists.

The little things

There’s 2 hours of free wifi and plug sockets around the walls, which make it a great place to chill and work after the lunchtime rush.

What we ate

Farm Girl has an extensive menu which makes it difficult to choose. As there were three of us, we shared the GF Bear Salad – a hearty mix of roasted beetroot, pear, goats cheese & toasted walnuts with an apple cider vinegar dressing, the pretty Sweet Kale and Coconut salad of shredded winter kale, charred corn, coconut & yellow courgette with a delicious date & tahini dressing, the Blue Jack Tacos with BBQ pulled jackfruit (very meaty tasting), pineapple, guacamole, egg free mayonnaise & lettuce, served on two soft blue corn tortillas and Scrambled eggs on toasted sour dough with a side of avocado.

To finish off we had a cute Açai bowl of organic frozen Amazonian berries blended with banana & almond milk and topped with coconut shavings, winter fruits & chia seeds. It was delicious.

The fresh juice test

Farm Girl doesn’t do homemade juices or smoothies, although there’s orange, apple and watermelon juice in the fridge. But what it lacks in juice, it more than makes up for with its signature latte selection.

Farm Girl makes eight different lattes and we worked our way through the five most nutritious: the Liquid Gold with turmeric, cinnamon, astralagus, honey and coconut milk (topped with a French bulldog), the Charcoal Latte with activated charcoal, date syrup & cashew milk, the Matcha Latte of organic Japanese green tea powder, the beautifully tart Hibiscus Matcha of organic hibiscus matcha powder with coconut milk and finally the vivid blue Butterfly Matcha with organic blue matcha powder and almond milk.

Hard to choose, but our favourite was the more-ish activated charcoal!

The bill

Bear Salad £7.50
Sweet Kale & Coconut Salad £7.50
Blue Jack Tacos £12.00
Scrambled Eggs £7.50 (with avocado £2.50)
Açai Bowl £8.00
Liquid Gold Latte £3.90
Charcoal Latte £4.00
Matcha Latte £3.70
Hibiscus Matcha £4.10
Butterfly Matcha £4.10

What else?

Farm Girl also has a café in the Sweaty Betty flagship store in Soho’s Carnaby St-with a larger range of smoothie bowls, a smoothie drink range and the signature lattes. Plus, another upmarket café in Chesea – read our review here.

What made us glow?

Frankly everything. We will be back and insta ready!

 

 

 

 

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Rose Mann, founder Farm Girl Notting Hill

If you’ve ever visited London’s most Instagrammed café you may have wondered who is the Farm Girl? We went to meet the face behind Farm Girl, Rose Mann, 28 and to hear the story behind the healthy eatery sensation.

Where did you get the idea for Farm Girl?

I discovered café culture and cool places to eat when I was 24 travelling with my boyfriend Anthony Hood for two months. We started in the Caribbean and then did a West Coast USA road trip from Albuquerque to San Francisco.

We saw the whole vibe of West Coast, the colourful food and cool interiors which I felt London was missing. I got so much inspiration while staying at The Parker hotel in Palm Springs.

I remember sitting in Norma’s, their breakfast bar, and I ordered granola and a fruit bowl. The presentation was so beautiful.

I kept talking about food and analysed every restaurant. Every time we visited a new café I ordered the chicken salad and compared them as we travelled. My favourite was in Petit Ermitage in LA.

Talking about creating a healthy café became my passion. Then I met a woman on holiday who owned a string of London cafés. She was so kind and mentored me advising me to look at the business side of running a café- everything from weekly profit forecasts to the percentage of staff retained.

How did your background influence Farm Girl?

My childhood was spent  on a dairy farm. I was one of five children in Terang in the Western District of Victoria not too far from Melbourne. Every day after school I had a checklist with my Dad feeding the puppies, cats, ferrets, horses and my sister’s pet fox.

It gave me a great understanding of farm to fork as well as a love of animals.

We ate fresh produce every day and my mum’s vegetable garden was amazing. My father always encouraged us to eat meat from the land, eggs from the chickens and the supermarkets in Australia also sold amazing produce – never wrapped in plastic. It was like being surrounded by Wholefoods in the middle of nowhere.

My mother is English and my father is polo-player turned farmer. Every summer we came to England to stay with my grand-parents. At 20, I moved to London first studying art history at Christie’s and then working for Horiyoshi the Third, a Japanese luxury brand in Connaught Street. I did the marketing, PR and ran the shop for four years. I fell in love with the city.

Rose Mann

When was your ‘step out’ moment?

When I returned from my travelling I thought what a fun dream it would be to open a café. My two housemates went out to work while I was sitting Googling how to create my business. I discovered the Portobello site for the café. But deposits, lease agreements, food registration or lawyers were not something I knew anything about.

Then I met a man who also wanted to start a café. He agreed to invest with us and help us but he texted me one night at midnight and pulled out. It was a frustrating moment!

Anthony said he would finish my business plan which I needed to secure the site from the landlord. The estate agent said I would never get it because I was too young and inexperienced. He was right I went to see the landlords personally and I sat with them and asked them why they said no. “It’s purely because you have no experience and too much of a risk” they said. I was up against a big chocolate brand and a burger brand.

But I never gave up. Instead I visited the receptionist for the landlords. I was almost begging and she said write up a list of suppliers, show where the funding is coming from and create the 3 year plan. I went away and did all of that. Two days later they invited me for an interview with 12 trustees. I was so nervous. They were asking me all these questions about my business plan. They finally called me and said come for a second interview. I was so stressed and tired I got a migraine. But in the middle of it all I got this call to tell me my dream had become a reality- we had got the site!

We opened on June 15th, 2015.

How did you create the Farm Girl style?

I knew what I wanted. Anthony got involved as my business partner in January 2015 taking care of the financial side. We hired David and Victoria Beckham’s private chef, Benoit Marmoiton to be across the menus and food.

We wanted to create somewhere where we would go every day.

Beata Heuman did the interior which is pretty intense. And we approached a Dorset potter, where Anthony is from, called David Archer to design and create our crockery. People now pinch it all the time so we’ve had ‘Property of Farmgirl’ stamped on the bottom.

As soon as we opened some articles came out all in the Evening Standard and Tatler listing us amongst the top 5 Instagrammable cafés in London. That’s when I realised something special was going on.

 

How important is social media to Farm Girl?

When we design the menu what it looks like is vital. I sat down with our Executive chef Benoit and said I want the staples – good porridge, avocado on toast and homemade granola. We wanted to use local suppliers.

Benoit is all about visuals which is why we have so many bloggers and influencers visiting us.

I remember being so excited when we had 8K Instagram followers. All my family back home were so excited. Now we have almost 50K followers. I didn’t understand it. But there was a word of mouth domino effect- we have the most amazing people coming here. Nigella came in and posted on her Instagram.

How is healthy eating changing in London?

London is a hub- travellers are flying in from all over the world to be here. It’s trendy and packed with influencers. Australians love it and they love healthy fresh food. So healthy eating is on a roll here. At weekends customers queue which for two hours to get in. We can feed 250 people on a busy day. We now have another site in Chelsea to try and keep up with demand.

I don’t want a huge chain and world domination.

I’d love to one day live back on a farm with lots of animals but in the meantime we want to make great places, where people have fun.

For our reviews of cafés created by Rose Man click  here for Notting Hill and here for Chelsea . 

Rose Mann