A short review of A. Gold - July 2010

The joyous and shiny new Berlin inspired Hipster Express from New Cross deposited me across the road from Hawksmoor. This could just be my new favourite journey. Walking through the old market to Liverpool Street, my mood went down from there. I genuinely hate how the developers have ripped the heart out of Spitalfields. The individual stalls and shops are pretty much cleared out now and even the camp but beautiful trinket shop Queens has recently closed. The few that remain are a shadow of their former glory peddling vanilla clothing, ethnic notebooks, expensive Laahndon souvenirs and ripped off Banksy prints in the main. 

Wandering through there on the way to meet the Masticator I found myself getting angrier and angrier, remembering some of the wonderful food stalls displaced and now moved to the Up-Market round the corner on Brick Lane. Striding past the mass market inadequacy of Wagamamma, Giraffe, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, The Real Greek and some generic crepe place I can't even be bothered to recall. It's a high end food court in a Croydon shopping mall.

Moving out onto Brushfield Street though I remembered A Gold, a quirky little place owned by Jeanette Winterson. Sandwiched between S&M Cafe (expensive 60's theme greasy spoon cafe) and a random sushi place. It's also 60's themed, though in a very different way, A Gold has authenticity in spades. They run a fascinating (albeit very expensive) deli specialising in dried goods and tracklements and also do a great range of (proper) old school sandwiches and cakes; British ham and mustard, cheese and pickle, a lovely Victoria sponge and other plain speaking treats.

Their delightful staff sort me out with a lovely single estate coffee while I wait for The Masticator. Beans ground to order, served from a beautiful drip feed set up into an array of charity shop mugs. They care about their store, and also worry about the over gentrification occurring. I take a seat outside and enjoy. Across the road, the new shiny Spitalfields Market shimmers in the sun, bereft of life and integrity, but full of confused tourists wondering what the fuss is.