Tin Roof Cafe, Maldon, Essex: ‘come For Topsoil, Stay For The Shortbread’ – Review

A tipoff to effort nan Tin Roof Cafe successful Maldon came pinch anterior warning: I wouldn’t get a array easy arsenic this all-day spot serving brunch, lunches and saccharine worldly from nan in-house bakery is constant, scone-fuelled bedlam. Red ceramic walls, greenery throughout, alfresco spaces, allotments increasing caller veg and herbs. Capacious, family-run, dog-welcoming, pocket-friendly. There’s bubble and squeak pinch hand-cut ham, Korean-style chickenhearted burgers and a vegan burger called, alternatively brilliantly, “Peter Egan” after, I’m guessing, nan animal-loving character who played Paul successful Ever Decreasing Circles.

‘Down-to-earth dining’: nan seafood platter.

Could this spot beryllium immoderate much adorable? No, but still, brace yourself. “It’s 1 in, 1 out,” I was told. “There’s a seated holding pen astatine nan beforehand wherever you hold for a table. Stand your crushed successful there. There’s loads of sharp-elbowed garden-centre folk. I deliberation they’re location for nan Basque cheesecake.” Ah, yes, nan arsenic immense Claremont plot centre, conscionable a fewer steps away. Cake, arsenic we each know, is catnip to gardeners. Sends them daft. Come for 20 litres of alkaline topsoil and a terracotta trough, enactment for nan seasonal pavlova and heavy wodges of billionaire’s shortbread. That’s millionaire’s shortbread pinch an other furniture of caramel decadence. Clearly existent billionaires would ne'er eat this shortbread, arsenic they’re each connected longevity hunts fuelled by OMAD (one repast a day), that repast being a posh rotation connected Trill budgie food.

Thankfully, astatine nan Tin Roof Cafe location are plentifulness of customers connected manus to eat Bill Gates’ share. Instead of wholesome eating spots for illustration Tin Roof becoming tweely irrelevant arsenic nan years pass, it’s evident they’re becoming much necessary. In 2026, eating early, soberly, pinch multigenerational tables – and, astir apt astir importantly, while trying not to walk £100+ per caput – is highly desirable. Once, a societal life revolving astir old scones successful plot centres was a quiet admittance of life’s downwards slope; nowadays, places for illustration Tin Roof person queues retired of nan doorway and TikTok hype, while nan likes of Pizza Express, aliases section pubs, request for daytime trade.

Dressing your ain Malaysian chickenhearted crockery felt for illustration ‘an arduous task’.

Tin Roof Cafe is intelligibly not earnest, po-faced dining; it wholly lacks that Petersham Nursery-influenced pretension wherever mini plates travel strewn pinch petunia leaves and there’s a gift shop pinch £50 notelet sets. No, this is overmuch much down-to-earth dining, pinch food digit baps, doorstep Burnham Bangers sarnies and very bully five-cheese toasties connected sourdough. Oozy, crisp, buttery and hefty; a sparkling example. We ordered a seafood sharing platter pinch prawns successful shells, smoked salmon, anchovies connected toast, a peppery smoked mackerel paté and a glut of different fishy things. A Malaysian chickenhearted crockery appeared successful a ample vessel pinch each its components laid retired separately: piles of seared chicken, mango, cashew nuts, cucumber, seeds, leaves and a well-balanced sharp-sweet orange-based dressing successful a abstracted dish. It felt princess-like to kick that this was lovely, but that it was a build-your-own salad, nan full point needed a bully operation and adding my ain dressing felt for illustration an arduous task. Perhaps modern audiences can’t perpetrate themselves to each nan ingredients, truthful Tin Roof are making it easier to region terrifying things for illustration avocado aliases rocket. Still, 1 couldn’t responsibility its generosity.

‘Airy, rich, conscionable saccharine enough’: nan Basque cheesecake.

As we ate, nan queues successful reception sewage longer. A motorbike pack arrived – a pleasant 1 who liked bakewell tarts, not bedraggled, lawless menaces to nine arsenic seen successful films. Pensioner ladies who lunch, making love teenagers, couples pinch babies grabbing caller aerial and nan partners of green-fingered types bribed to transportation apical ungraded by a committedness of eggs florentine and a information of berry financiers. We took cakes home; their Basque cheesecake is beautiful damn good. Airy, rich, conscionable saccharine enough, blackened successful nan correct places and pinch a pleasing crust. The bakewell tart is arsenic good; albeit of US-style Cheesecake Factory proportions. An tremendous portion of java and walnut was little impressive, but not upsetting capable to extremity maine returning to Tin Roof whenever I want to conflict for my correct to eat banana breadstuff astatine 2pm betwixt babies, grans and quiet horticulturalists. A not-so-hidden gem. More powerfulness to its farming elbow.

• The Tin Roof Cafeteria and Bakery, Bryants Lane, Maldon, Essex CM9 6TB, 01245 204666. Open each week 8.30am-4pm; meal 8.30am-11.30am, luncheon noon-3pm Mon-Fri, brunch 8.30am-3pm Sat-Sun, antagonistic nutrient each day. From astir £15 positive drinks and service