Cafes and cool spots: John & Rose art cafe

John & Rose

80/84 Rue de Flandre

1000 Bxl

http://www.johnandrose.be/

Food and Art, what more could you want?

As soon as you walk into this place, you're greeted by a friendly waitress who gives you a seat and a menu. You then take off your coat and sit down and actually start to look around.

The area towards the street is the eating/seating area, filled with wooden tables and chairs. The walls are black but it works so well with the natural brightness from the windows that make up the whole front facade and extra lamps. The other thing that makes the black walls seem friendly is the fact that the other part of the space is totally white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. All white and as minimalist as you could ever want it to be. There's a low table and couch chair area in there as well as a piano and one more wooden table in the center of the whole space. Space. The whole place is well laid out, giving a super open and spacious feel. On all of the walls, you'll find great geometric prints by the artist Izleo as well as candid shots of his work plastered in random places. This is the current exhibition at the cafe, set to be there for only another week before they change it, so go now if you wish to see it!

The atmosphere is great, people are just sitting around with their friends, having brunch (available on weekends), chatting. The art area is quieter as you have fewer people in it but there's still the nice sound of chatter coming from behind.

I ordered a Caesar salad (served with fresh organic brown bread), among the choices of sandwiches, soup, eggs, vegetable dips, etc. All of the choices are very simple food but well prepared. They don't't try to make things too complicated and just had really tasty and healthy food clearly made with fresh ingredients. There was also a good selection of organic brand soft drinks.

As I briefly waited for my food, I got to look through a selection of brochures and magazines that had been set up on the low coffee table. All art related, one was a leaflet of the exhibit MA VILLE that you could see on all the walls, another was a book of Andy Warhol album covers. Nice touch for those who go in alone.

As for the service, the waitresses were lovely, open and talkative.
Funny story: I may have led them to think that I was going to leave a terrible review, because I ate very little of my salad (it was a huge portion and I wasn't very hungry, I thoroughly enjoyed what i did have though!), stayed for only 25 minutes, and was clearly taking lots of pictures of the place. But when the staff saw that I'd left a lot of food, they asked me if anything was wrong with it and offered for me to take the rest home, if I wanted to! So definitely got treated well, I was very impressed.

The pricing is very much affordable, my food cost 10 euros and my orange juice, 3. The most expensive thing on the menu was the brunch at 15 euros, and the cheapest food was the soup (served with bread), at 3,50 euros.

In summary: A great place to hang out with friends or to visit on your own and soak up the atmosphere. Really good service and fresh food. You can easily eat for under 15 euros and you really get your money's worth. The art really makes the space unique and vibrant. I would definitely recommend checking the place out, especially before the 7th of february before they change the artwork!.