Jaunty Goat Coffee — Restaurant in England

Before I go further, it's important that I quantify this review because on the grand scale of things this is a reasonably good coffee shop.

I actually live near Brighton, which is well known to be one of the best cities for coffee in the UK, if not worldwide. We get to drink coffees made by champion baristas, which means I can at times get very picky about my coffee.

Last year my partner moved home to Chester last year and hasn't been overly impressed by the coffee here. But as we both have different tastes in coffee I wanted to find out for myself.

The Jaunty Goat came recommended as probably the best. Certainly from the outside it has all the hallmarks of a modern specialist coffee shop. Moving inside the atmosphere is upbeat and the place is very clean.

Day 1: Cortado. As you can see from the picture I've posted with the review, the art on this coffee was sublime and that can only be achieved with very good quality micro-foam. The milk has a good sweetness and texture, however I think (given the pricing structure that would seem to confirm this) it was a single shot, whereas I would have preferred a double shot. Either that or a darker roast coffee for this drink. But essentially a very good Cortado. 8/10

Day 2: Long Black. My first impression was it's quite an expensive price for this drink (about 10% more than the typical price). There is no milk but it was 20p more than my Cortado yesterday. I assume this was the double shot making the price difference. A contentious point. Unfortunately I would suggest perhaps the shot was a little long as the crema was spoilt and the coffee tasted quite bitter. Shame really, not a complete disaster. 6/10

Day 3: Macchiato. Sorry. This was awful. It's common for different coffee shops to have slight variances on a particular drink, but this wasn't a Macchiato in my opinion. The name Macchiato means 'stained' so the idea is that foamed milk is spooned onto the espresso so as just to take the edge off the taste of the espresso. Realistically on a single shot, 2 teaspoons of foam would be perfect - On a double shot 4-5. This had been poured on so as to fill the espresso cup, which had diluted the coffee so much it was almost like a miniature latte. Really a shame, and a disappointing note to my morning. 1/10

So to summarise: Please do go to the Jaunty Goat and not Starbucks or Costa etc. It's considerably better than those. The staff are also really friendly. If you really are into coffee, don't get your hopes up too much but it's...

Kala namak! Get the plant-based eggs. Kala namak will change your life. It's changed ours. As veggies trying to be more vegan, we know we'd miss scrambled eggs. Once you've tried theirs here as we did last month, you will immediately do as we did and hunt down kala namak (a big South Asian store will have it, it's also known as black salt) as it's the secret ingredient that finally transforms scrambled tofu (which I've had loads of times) into something that's genuinely better than scrambled eggs. I made it three times in 24 hours, it's so good. I returned today to the other branch (which is fully vegan) to try the original again, where they very helpfully gave me their recipe which was super similar to the one I've been using on the RainbowPlantLife website. Today I also had an excellent coconut mocha. Last time we had an incredible polenta cake. Service is sublime at both branches. Part of the reason I returned to Chester was to explore their menu further, which I'll be doing this week. It's rare that you find a place so consistently excellent.

(later...)

Loses a star however for cancelling my Too Good To Go order with no notice two days in a row. In four years of using TGTG this has happened to me once ever - with Jaunty Goat it's happened two days in a row. For heaven's sake don't put stuff on TGTG unless you have it available. It does tremendous damage to how your fans feel about your brand.

Loses a further star for today's miserably soggy pancakes whose "seasonal fruit" consisted of rather sad-looking browned diced apple. Service today was far below other visits too. I guess it's time to leave Chester before it gets any worse. At least the vegan branch...

Jaunty was recommended. Omg. Talk about disappointed. Over priced and pretentious. What you see in the picture is what we both had (x2) the other one with a pot of tea. Practically £19 for a tiny latte, and tiny pot of pickle and what is essentially an average bacon sandwich. Never in my life has a bacon sandwich been brought out with a gerkin almost as big as the sandwich. What are you thinking jaunty goat? The pot tea???? Came with a 3 minute timer. We had a run down on what we had to do and the pot filled the tiny cup once with approx another half filled cup. We asked for hot water to supplement the half pot. JAUNTY how about just serve a real cup of tea without the faff, in a good sized cup like you would at home. Who drinks tea from a pot with no handles on a chopping board? Oh dear jaunty🙄 The toilet situation is dire as well. There were at least 40-50 people in with one toilet Have a guess what happened there??? In comparison when we arrived in Chester in the morning we went to Marmalade we got what we expected as a customer. We love Chester but don't recommend jaunty goat. Overpriced for what you get. Cups from Lilliput land. When busy the toilet situation is dire. Food is average. We didn't walk away and say that was great food and go back.

Sorry Jaunty, next time we're in Chester for a day visit we'll be giving your...