Magic Cafe

  • (01865) 794604
  • 110 Magdalen Road
  • OX4 1RQ
  • 10am - 6pm Monday to Saturday, except Friday 10am - 10pm

Kake, 10 Jun 1998

The Magic Café is one of Oxford's two full-time all-vegetarian eating places. It's some way out of town, at 110 [Magdalen Road]? (roughly halfway between the Cowley and Iffley Roads, about 5 minutes walk past Tesco's) but the bus from the city centre stops just at the Iffley Road end of Magdalen Road. The Inner Bookshop next door is also worth a visit, if you're into hippy-type things.

This is a very relaxed place to have lunch or a snack. The walls are a lovely pale orange colour (we're thinking of asking if we can get our office painted the same colour); there's a three-piece suite by the window for lounging around with coffee; and there's relaxing hippy music as well. A large noticeboard is available for anything you want to tell people about - I noticed a newsletter for the small schools association, adverts for deep tissue massage, shiatsu, Indian head massage, vegetarian flatshares and plenty more.

Children are welcome here - when I visited on a Monday afternoon, the place was soon full of mothers with children. At least one highchair is provided, as are a few toys. The Guardian is also provided for the adults. Service is from the counter, and the woman who served me was very friendly. She did have trouble finding enough change - it might be worth making sure you have some!

The vegan option is generally soup, salad and bread. I had the Mexican Bean Soup (£2.30), which was tasty but not too spicy, and substantial with red kidney beans, sweetcorn, and chunks of potato, celery, carrot and green pepper. Plenty of fresh coriander was sprinkled on top. The bread roll (70p) was home-made and fairly nice, though a little too oily for my taste. Glasses of cold fruit juice (from cartons) are available at 70p, and filter coffee is 80p. Soya milk is available for the coffee; but it's the type with no calcium added, which tends to curdle (mine did).

OS X co-ord: 453014     OS Y co-ord: 205186     (Latitude: 51.742411 Longitude: -1.232090)
Last edited 2012-12-29 21:15:09 (version 6; diff). List all versions.