Queens Cafe

In our ever continuing trawl through Southside cafes, Gav and I went to Queens Cafe for brunch.

Queens Cafe is a classic old school cafe, located at the Victoria Road entrance to Queens Park - with shiny red plastic tables, strange decor from another time period and that wonderful organic feeling of a space that has grown into the shop it is rather than having been planned.

I'm afraid however that the breakfast was our least favourite so far - it's been cheapest so far by a fair bit but unfortunately it tasted like it too. With the farmers market just a mere 50m away I had some slight hopes of some tasty gourmet type affair but sadly no and it was the cheap and cheerful variety. Our disappointment over breakfast was short lived though, as the main reason for visiting the cafe was still to come.

The Queens Cafe, for those that don't know, is a bit of a Southside institution for one thing in particular - and that is its ice-cream. It even proudly proclaims on the outside "The best Ice-cream in Glasgow" and they take it very seriously as this extract from a Sunday Herald article about Scottish Ice-cream shows.

"QUEEN'S CAFE, Victoria Road, Glasgow "We're famous for our vanilla," says Marion, the lady behind the counter in this unchanging local legend of a cafe. "In the summer, there's queues down the street for it." She gives us a sample in a cup, and sure enough it is a pure, almost holy thing, ringing 12 bells of pleasure from tongue to belly. Manager and ice-cream maker David Ginesi, whose family has "passed this shop down from relative to relative", explains the basics. "You just heat full milk and fresh cream in the boiler, add sugar and vanilla and some ingredients that I can't really tell you, then churn it and freeze it." I had always felt that vanilla was comparable to the missionary position - enjoyable, but a little bland. I now stand corrected and ashamed."

Now I'm a big ice-cream fan, especially of vanilla and was therefore extremely looking forward to this. I opted for a double cone with vanilla on one side and fruits of the forest on the other. I wasn't a hundred percent sure about the vanilla - might have just been because I usually get a small tub and it being a sunny day the vanilla was melting fast - but the fruits of the forest scoop was fantastic and I highly recommend it if they have it in stock. I also get Ann a wee tub of half vanilla half white chocolate - but it had melted by the time it got back and after refreezing it just wasn't the same.

You can find some more photos of Queens Cafe at the wonderful I like site.

I also found this site which describes Victoria Road. Is an odd wee site - its basically set up to try and provide descriptions and directions to every public area in the UK - not sure how often it is updated.