Sir – Last week you reported the closure of the Café Noir in Osler Road — a sad loss to the amenities of Headington.
Established and long managed, by Majid Yazdani, his wife Cahty, and her mother Geeta, the café was a place of real cosmopolitan distinction — enticing dishes on offer, complemented by the excellent quality of cooking, always a visual delight as served; coffees, beer and wine always available for more casual occasions.
The café entertained a wide public — celebratory parties and smaller groups — often from Headington’s hospitals, local OAPs indulging themselves, arty folk, business folk, students, local councillors, taxi-drivers dropping by — recognising the excellence of the coffee — taking their ease and chatting in a host of Slavic languages, friends and couples of all ages, plus foreign visitors lodging in Headington.
All in all, a wonderful lively mix, brewing a warmth of atmosphere not found in the franchises.
The café’s staff also, ever spruce, cheerful, engaging, attentive, added to a customer’s delight. Now in my early 80s and assailed by rapidly diminishing mobility, the Café Noir has proved a godsend to me.
Sited at the virtual limit of my leg-exercising totter-distance, I was an almost daily customer over the past four years. Generally, I chose to sit outside under the café’s narrow awning, in almost all weathers, to enjoy a glass of wine, a coffee and a cigar, watching the world go by.
I owe Majid and his family and others at the café, a great debt of gratitude for an immensity of pleasure. Perhaps I speak for others: ‘Thank you Majid, Cahty and Geeta! — Café Noir! you will be keenly missed!’
John Barrow, Headington
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