Louise Palmer-Masterton is a powerhouse! She has founded and is running two highly successful businesses in the city and she’s fizzing with energy and ideas. I met Louise in Stem + Glory, her new vegan cafe in King Street.
Louise tells me that she enjoys food and cooking and has herself been vegan for many years. Camyoga, the yoga business that she started in 2003, took off straight away and over fourteen years has grown into a multi studio enterprise offering not only yoga classes but workshops and teacher training courses too. Having opened a small cafe, really just for the yoga clients, Louise began to develop ideas for a larger vegan cafe and when a site became available at Mitchams Corner in 2016, she successfully crowdfunded the project to open a cafe and yoga studio there. The cafe was open to the public from the start, offering fast, fresh and healthy plant-based food to eat in or take out through the day and vegan fine dining in the evenings.
When the opportunity came to open a city centre vegan cafe at the old Afternoon Tease premises in King Street earlier this year, Louise didn’t waste any time. She again crowdfunded successfully to refurbish and refit both sites. Mitchams Corner is now a table service restaurant at lunch and dinner. The new King Street cafe, staffed by the existing Afternoon Tease team, is the place for fast healthy eating and it’s been buzzing since it opened its doors in November.
If you’re eating in, you can pile your plate from a selection of hot dishes and salads for £9. If you’re on the go, you can do the same but put it in a box (small, medium or large) to take away. Wraps are always available along with cakes, coffee, tea, soft drinks and shakes. There’s a small breakfast menu at the moment but that will be expanding soon and a brunch menu is on the way.
My daughter and I grabbed a table on a busy Saturday and we were eating the colourful food with our eyes before it got anywhere near our mouths! Pumpkin tagine was aromatic while the earthy warmth of a beetroot and horseradish pie with mushroom was perfectly complemented by a fluffy mashed potato topping. Spicy bulghur wheat salad came speckled with herbs and mixed seeds, carrot and fennel salad was fresh and crunchy while the cauliflower and rocket salad was drizzled with a silky tahini dressing. There’ll be a different style of menu each week so there’s always something new and delicious on offer.
Louise’s success with Camyoga and Stem + Glory has been recognised with two awards this year – the Cambridge Business Excellence Awards Small Business of the Year and Best Newcomer at the Cambridge Food and Drink Awards. And I can’t wait to see what Louise does next ….. she has big plans for Stem + Glory in 2018 so watch this space!
13 King Street, Cambridge CB1 1LH
New in Cambridge 