Alicia’s Secret Spanish Café

by Julia Mallaby

At Bimble we live and breathe great little places: the independent shops, bars, cafés, restaurants, spas and galleries that make each neighbourhood special. Living through Covid, knowing they are struggling, makes us all the more determined to stay strong to support them.

But there is this amazing thing that comes to the fore when creative, independent business owners are faced with tough times: they innovate. They dig deep, think hard, focus on what their customers love and come up with fantastic ideas.

Last night, I spoke to just such a business: The Secret Café in Bristol, opened by Alicia and her husband, Antonio in June 2019. Antonio took the phone, he’s more comfortable in English than Alicia, but he made it very clear that she was the driving force behind the business and I could hear the pride in his voice. She had fallen in love with the location: a beautiful, out of the way, café space annexed to St Stephen’s church, within a lovely garden, several years before and a serendipitous encounter in 2018 led to her discovering that the church was looking for someone to take it on. She raised her hand and Secret Café was born.

Alicia is a very good cook and their café serves a variety of Spanish snacks, light meals and cakes. Her food, combined with the wonderful location and the couple’s enthusiasm quickly made Secret Café a success.

With lockdown, they didn’t know how to keep going. They’d never done any takeaway before, it had always been about the place itself, enjoying the surroundings. But they had to adjust and they got off to a good start with tortillas and empanadas: popular items on the menu and not too hard to eat on the go.

Then Alicia started to innovate. Thinking of people stuck at home, longing for variety, she had an idea: tapas takeaway boxes! Lovingly prepared tapas boxes for two with a range of tasty Spanish snacks. She recommended that customers buy a nice bottle of wine (Ribera del Duero, or Rueda), listen to some soft guitar music and enjoy an evening at home. Unsurprisingly, this was very popular!

Over Christmas, Alicia turned her thoughts to the Spanish community in Bristol who, like her and Antonio, would miss their families and Christmas traditions this year, unable to get home. In Spain, Christmas is celebrated at the Epiphany, or Kings’ Day, on January 6th. That is when gifts are opened in the early morning and families gather and eat together. Central to this is the traditional Spanish King’s day cake, the Roscón de Reyes. It is like a large circular doughnut, filled with cream and decorated with preserved fruit. Alicia got baking to bring joy to the community — and the orders flooded in. Antonio told me they had received countless thank you messages from customers, grateful to have had a taste of home for their celebrations. “We made a lot of people happy, which felt fantastic”.

Hopefully Secret Café will re-open properly soon, along with so many great little places across the city, the country and beyond. Until then, you can take your imaginations on a wander at Bimble. Alicia has made a Bimble list of the places she loves best in her adopted home of Bristol: it’s yours to enjoy!

If you know a founder story you’d like to share, please get in touch (hello@bimble.com). We love hearing about independent businesses and the people behind them.