One of the more interesting items to land in my email inbox this month was a chance to review 5|Quarter, The Common Room's dedicated café bar in Central Newcastle
For those unfamiliar, the grade II* listed The Common Room is a charity-funded heritage venue formerly known to many as the Mining Institute building which celebrates the North East’s centuries of engineering, mining and other scientific innovation through its collections and archives.
Thanks to a £5m National Lottery Heritage Fund grant towards this £9m project, £7m has been used to lovingly restore the building with a further near £2m contributing to running costs and inspiring the next generation of Northern innovations and engineers. Set on the corner of the city’s Westgate Rd, The Common Room features a packed programme of events and with such close proximity to Newcastle Central Station, is a great advert for the city and region.
5|Quarter lies at the heart of The Common Room and is a stylish space to refuel after exploring the venue’s many activities and archives. The café bar derives its name from a coal seam that ran through the Great Northern Coalfield and offers hot beverages, innovation cocktails, classic wines and locally sourced food. One thing also assured of course, is that warm Geordie welcome.
This certainly sounded quite the prospect. Both my wife Lisa and I, with ancestry inextricably attached to the mining and shipbuilding industries, have a keen interest in local history so were keen to learn more when we visited one Saturday afternoon – ever that most exciting time in the Geordie week.
Suffice to say, the building is fairly spectacular and dripping with character and history. Settling in, we were invited to try a couple of cocktails which play upon little motifs of Northern history. ‘Like Granny Used to Make’ for instance, mixed rhubarb & ginger gin with Absolut vanilla vodka, apple juice, cranberry juice and fresh lemon. Lisa’s ‘Lamplight’ cocktail meanwhile was spun up expertly with Absolut raspberry vodka, crème de cassis, Bristol syrup grenadine and lemonade. Figuratively and literally drinking in the history then one might say!
The food offering meanwhile comprises a sumptuous spread of brunch options, hot & cold sandwiches, soups, salads and dirty potato ‘tots’. With so many of The Common Room’s activities fun and educational, kids are also well looked after with a full kids menu in place. For Lisa, it was to be the oak smoked salmon sandwich on brown bloomer with cream cheese and pickled cucumber. I meanwhile chose a steak ciabatta – cooked to the perfect pink – with caramelised onion, mustard mayo and rocket. Both were washed down with a glass of pinot grigio blush and excellent cab sauv respectively. Signposted on the menu is a little further detail about The Common Room. Each purchase helps to preserve the site’s collections and archives whilst also funding the numerous STEM activities available for young people. This certainly gets our vote. For those looking to immerse themselves in North East heritage, 5|Quarter provides an alternative place to socialise, meet for drinks , a stop-off before train travel or to enjoy a cocktail before the theatre.
Great credit then must be given to the team behind this stunning resurrection of The Common Room. If , like me, you’re a vocal champion of the North East, then this cultured, richly interesting new venue deserves our support.
