The Commons Cafe Colchester – Sweetcorn Miso Soup

This is an older post from the start of 2024, but I wanted to bring it over properly to the website archive.

I’ve been to Commons Café in Colchester twice since it opened. Commons Café is a vegetarian / vegan café based inside The Minories, and they use local produce.

What mainly catches my eye is all the pop-ups they do with different local people. I’ve seen Indian food and Vietnamese food pop-ups there before, which definitely would have been my sort of thing. I love Asian food, so that was always going to get my attention.

The first time I went, we had curried parsnip soup, which I really enjoyed. It was creamy, and I do like a creamy soup. We also had a sausage roll, which was nice and hearty on a cold winter day before Christmas.

I also bought some apple chutney, which ended up going really well with my vegan Christmas turkey.

The second time I went, The Nourish Co was doing the food. They had a sweetcorn chowder and miso soup, which caught my eye. I’m not a massive soup person, but I do like miso soup.

I’m quite an anxious person and I’m autistic, so going somewhere on my own can be a big thing for me. The staff were very friendly and helpful, which made it a lot easier.

I ordered the miso soup and a cappuccino with oat milk.

The coffee here is really lovely and served in very nice cups. They also sell a number of products, so I may end up treating myself to something at some point. Very dangerous when you go in for coffee and come out thinking you need a new cup.

When the food arrived, I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a bland miso soup.

Thankfully, it wasn’t.

It had a nice kick of spice, and I could taste something zesty in there too — maybe lemon. It also had mushrooms and sweetcorn in the soup, and I really enjoyed it. It went pretty quickly, which is usually a good sign.

One of the staff also kindly asked if I wanted any water, which was a nice touch.

They also do a mixture of cakes and sweet treats if you’re looking for something after, although I’d eaten enough this time, so I didn’t have any.

Before Christmas Day, they also opened and gave away a free vegan Christmas roast dinner for anyone on their own, which I thought was a really lovely thing to do.

I’ll definitely be returning and supporting this locally run community café.