'A heartwarming community success story' - Joanna Blythman reviews Dandelion Cafe, Glasgow

Breakfast/Lunch: £10-£15

Food rating: 8/10

I AM utterly charmed by the Dandelion Cafe. Of course, on paper I was bound to like it. I mean, what a heartwarming story! Local residents campaigned to restore the tennis courts in Glasgow’s Newlands Park, a small green space at the heart of the community. They succeed – hurrah! – and then comes the icing on the cake (literally). Two locals, Mairi Darroch and Suzanne Stevenson, take on the sad, abandoned tennis pavilion with every window smashed or boarded up, and set about restoring it as an 1920s Arts and Crafts revival cafe. They pull it off! The pavilion looks fantastic, both inside and out, reminiscent of one of those idealised travel posters from the 1920s and 1930s that marketed halcyon recreational possibilities for active citizens.

And the story gets better still. Even if the Dandelion Cafe served only passable food, it would be the apple of my eye, not only for its commendable restoration efforts, but also as a creative inspiration to other engaged communities to give their shabby architectural gems a new purpose through food. Lots of buildings in Scotland could lend themselves to such a venture, after all.

But despite my conservative expectations, the food here is more than adequate, in fact, like a rococo flourish of piped Chantilly cream, the baking at the Dandelion Cafe would give Bake Off a run for its money. Look at these confections and watch any vows to avoid sugar and starch go to the wall. But what a way to go, for here is freshness, generosity; cakes, biscuits that instantly put to shame those overpriced, dried up, fusty afternoon teas that are all the rage.

And because you can never assume that accomplished bakers are also good cooks, let me assure you that the savouries – salads, soups, all-day breakfasts – are ideal for a place like this, that is, unfussy, straightforward, neither talking up nor talking down to their customers, admirably fresh, and made with good quality ingredients.

So there was a good chunky lentil soup that didn’t provoke the usual stock cube-stoked salty hangover, made-to-order French toast with crisp dry-cured bacon, crumbly black pudding, and an ample lick of expensive maple syrup. It’s hard to imagine that a bagel could be more heartily stuffed with salt beef than ours was, and yet the presentation, with dill pickle and mustardy mayo peeking out from the layers of meat under a sweet little wooden “Thank You” sign, was neat and careful, just like the dainty shortbread hearts that come free with tea (from Eteaket) and coffee. Crucially, Dandelion Café has got its bread buying right. So there’s none of the usual factory fast-track stuff, but well-made sourdoughs, granaries and the like that don’t come cheap. Larger than usual pats of classy Breton butter elbow out the customary B&B-style greasy tin foil equivalent. Free-range eggs, that breakfast necessity, come from Corrie Mains farm, meats from Ramsay of Carluke.

You could be restrained with the cakes here, a self-contained raspberry Bakewell perhaps, or a pecan-topped banoffee muffin wouldn’t constitute a binge, but I don’t think I have ever seen such an enticing Victoria sponge, its buttercream opulently streaked with fresh strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. You only had to look at the stripy chocolate peanut cake to know that it would be delectably soft and squidgy, and the reality delivered. A relatively plain and putatively “healthy” option of date and oat slice was the opposite of penance, a butterscotch melt of plump, velvety date flesh cuddling up with toasty nuts and flakes.

Dandelion Café is a treat of a place that will appeal to all ages, with the exception perhaps of teenagers who are desperately trying to be cool. But the sheer charm of this place will not be lost on this last demographic as they too in time find themselves pushing a buggy round the park, or being wheeled in a chair around it. Parks like these are marvellous places, our endowment from benevolent city fathers who planted trees they themselves would never see mature. If only their shopping mall-obsessed, latter day equivalents shared that vision and understood that dear green places should be every citizen’s entitlement.