Thursday 23 February 2012

Nero - Nearly

So last weekend, actually no, the weekend before I was up early with Baby Spiller on a Sunday morning. I did the good daddy thing and took him out for a walk to let Mrs Spiller catch up on some sleep. I decided to sit down for a coffee (alright two) while I was out and given I was out so early Nero was one of the only options available.

That said it was a good time to give Nero a go because it was quiet, I was able to get a seat easily.

Here's the low down:

The order was
  • small cappuccino
  • single espresso
  • pain au raisin
Initially I didn't get my espresso but that's understandable, most people don't expect someone to be buying a shot of espresso for their 3 month old son! With that corrected I took my two coffees and pastry and sat down, grabbing the mornings sports section for a read.

The espresso was fine, good in fact.

Cappuccino  - what I like about Nero is they do a proper small sized coffee, it only comes with 1 shot but that's fine although on this occasion the coffee hardly came through at all. Not a very strong flavour.

On this occasion the milk was done quite well for a chain store, creamy with small bubbles - not soap suds. So good work there.

The biggest disappointment was the pain au raisin. I should have known better than getting food from one of these places. Goodness knows where the pastry was made but it was disappointing. Serves me right I suppose for buying food in a chain coffee shop.

Of the big chains, Nero is probably my favourite, partly because you can get a proper sized coffee and also it is usually a good flavour, however not on this occasion. And thinking about it I occasionally get a coffee from Nero in Surbiton on the way to work, the last couple have been poor, I wonder if they've changed their coffee supplier or have had a bad batch.

Apart from the food and coffee the atmosphere of Nero is decent, as you would expect. It was nice being somewhere spacious and quiet. One downside was that they had their aircon turned up high which blew the paper around as I read it. But that's a small issue really.

Right, the scores:
Coffee
Hot: 9/13
Aroma: 7/13
Flavour: 7/13  (espresso good, cap average)
Texture: 10/13
Presentation: 8/13

General
Service: 6/13
Food: 5/13
Atmosphere: 6/13

Overall 7/13.

Nero is still my pick of the chains but in Balham there isn't much excuse for going there unless it's really early and no where else is open.

Caffe Nero on Urbanspoon

No comments:

Post a Comment