Meet the owners

Meet Wendy

Located in the heart of Cambridge, family-run Café Abantu is renowned for its fresh, seasonal fare and passion for people, from customers to Fairtrade suppliers. Owner Wendy Slade tells us her story

How Café Abantu started

Myself and a group of ladies in Hardwick discussed doing something communitybased like a coffee shop, with ethical gifts. We found premises in Bourn, and decided to split the business into two. With my South African background, I was very much into the ethos of ethical gifts and named my gift shop Abantu as ‘bantu’ is the Zulu word for people, whilst the adjoining café opened as The Source.

Becoming a cafe

We co-existed for a couple of years and then The Source had some changes so I ended up knocking a wall down, quickly learning how to bake (as I’d never baked in my life before) and opening up a café called Abantu – The People’s Tearoom.

On the move

In 2016 we moved to a space which we absolutely loved at Wysing Arts Centre, where we stayed for 18 months and won the award for Best Café in East Anglia. Then Sticky Beaks café came up for sale and we decided to move to Cambridge. It was a huge change for us but we have continued our Fairtrade ethos, so we still use Matthew Algie Coffee, which is Fairtrade, organic, and Rainforest Alliance approved.

The Abantu ethos

Our ethos is about working with people as closely as possible, so we have our wonderful regular customers, we know our delivery drivers by name and we have great relationships with our suppliers which include Stir Bakery.

On the menu

The wonderful thing about our menu is that we can play with it. I love my Sundays as I will sit out in the sunshine and choose my salad and specials menu for the week. I’ll go through seasonal recipes and social media for inspiration, or if Cambridge Market has lots of amazing yellow courgettes, for example, then we’ll incorporate those. We encourage our staff to come up with ideas too.

The fresh salads

Our salads in our chiller are our focus point. We have some lovely summer flavours like pineapple and chilli, and feta and watermelon. Our broccoli salad is based on South African roots and is a delicious mix of raw broccoli, grated cheese, raisins, pumpkin seeds, balsamic and mayo. Our potato salad has condensed milk mixed through the mayo to give it that really creamy taste, as well as boiled eggs.

The brunch selection

We launched our Burger Brunch because we got inundated on the day of Cambridge Half Marathon and it’s been super popular ever since. It’s a Stir roll, filled with two sausages, bacon, a fried egg, spinach and with a hash brown on top. The Hash Stack is a combination of hash browns, halloumi and poached eggs and is a bestseller. Our vegan option is served on a crumpet with tomatoes and mushrooms fried with sumac, served with asparagus and sweet chilli jam.

Our chiller favourites

The quiche and sausage rolls are always popular and we try lots of different flavours. We also have our toasties, always having a meat, plant and veggie option.

The cakes

We bake some cakes in-house such as our brownies and flapjacks, our flapjack being a bestseller! We buy some cakes in from local bakers having limited space in our kitchen. One we use is Rachel Bakes, a lovely local baker based just outside Cambridge who makes our loaf cakes and millionaires’ shortbread, whilst Stir often provide our scones and croissants.

Being sustainable

It’s important for us to work with the people around us and our environment. We are always using organic and Fairtrade; it can cost us more but it’s worth it as right from the beginning we’ve been cautious to ensure our coffee and tea come from a good source. As with the gifts, we always like to trace the source of our products.

The best bit

I feel extremely privileged to be running a café in Cambridge. I love the customers and my team; it’s always been about the people.

Café Abantu is at 42 Hobson Street, Cambridge. Visit café-abantu.co.uk