Eat Me Cafe, Scarborough

Scarborough isn’t short of cafes, but there’s a reason there’s a queue down the street outside this one. The brainchild of one-time local lad Stephen and his husband Simon, Eat Me is a cool, funky space with no small amount of kitsch – on walls, in the form of Tretchikoff prints, on slightly scruffy (communal) tables in the form of Hovis bread tins containing condiments (and Lyle’s Golden Syrup tins holding cutlery) and certainly in the menu – in a good way! It reads a bit like a whistle-stop tour round the world, starting in Scotland (Stephen’s birthplace) with the likes of Shetland pie – a superbly deep, sticky, crisp pastry-clad beauty which arrives with mushy peas and proper gravy. Jump a plane to Japan for a dish of piping hot, fragrant Ramen noodles and back to Blighty for a ‘tin plate lunch’, essentially brown rice topped with chargrilled chicken, served on one of those 50’s white tin plates edged in blue. Very Call the Midwife. Three nights a week they serve supper. They’re not licensed, so bring a bottle. Oh, and you’ll find yourself loitering in the loo to listen to ‘Round the Horne’ – kitsch upon kitsch!