The Mannequin

When you work tirelessly in the soul sucking job that is customer service, the last thing you want to do on a sunny day off is enter a stuffy corporate coffee shop. The empathy for the staff’s lacklustre employment is overwhelming when you know what it’s like.
But my dears, that is what makes Mannequin such a treat! Sitting on the stretch of Queen Margaret Drive that is cool and chintzy, this quaint little tea emporium is Georgian awesomeness spliced into a shop! With its high backed antique furniture, cake trays and doily’s everywhere, it’s my idea of heaven!
It may look like a post Victorian musing of grandeur, but the prices are nice and grounded. It’s under five pounds for most light bites, and their selection of very continental. You can purchase a delicious spinach and feta toastie for £3.50, and a pot of tea is very reasonably priced. It’s a lovely place to pull up a chair and relax, but also a good stop off for ladies licensed to lunch.
Put on your finery, or just shove on some clothing and call in for a brew. Whatever takes your fancy, The Mannequin will pull out their finest china for you and make you feel like you’re closer to Mansfield Park. This place is a throwback to different times and an alternative to the trendier than thou coffee shops that usually inhabit the West End. Very unusual, and with the art displayed on the walls this delightful scone-​tastic establishment is fantastic for high tea, or an ideal place to share philosophies over a pot of Earl Gray. Oh, I say!

The full name is Mannequin and Papingo, and for those of you who don’t know, ‘papingo’ is the Scots word for parrot.
It’s a more upmarket tea room, complete with dainty cups and table cloths (a novelty nowadays!), with more of a country b&b feel.
Situated next to the more bohemian North Star, the two businesses are at opposite ends of a spectrum.
The name of it confused me, it seemed an odd choice to call a tea room, but I get it now. The Papingo part of the title is an homage to the original Papingo coffee house, which, back in 1957 was the first coffee house to have a Gaggia expresso machine.
With art for sale on the walls, it prides itself on being ‘a small gallery’ with tea and cake on the side, rather than the other way around.
It isn’t as pricey as it looks, and provides breakfast, sandwiches, and of course, CAKE. It isn’t the type of place you can plunk down with your studying, but more like the kinda place you’d take your auntie.
Bring your white gloves, just in case.

TO be entirely truthful this is the kind of place i would normally never step foot into. Maybe its the fluffy, frilly cutesy exterior to the fact that it kind of reminds you of a doyley? Yeah, its a combination of these things plus having grown up in paisley if you were ever spotted anywhere near this place you would have been chased around the school/​work yard by an angry mod with flaming torches and pitchforks screaming «he likes frills and such, get him!!!»…sorry, Paisley flashback.
Anyway, to reality we must travel., maybe its the lack of sleep or the fact that its sooooo very cold outside, or maybe just that this place is so quirky (check dictionary; find photo of me), that i totally love it. From the linen table clothes, china tea cups and assortment of flowery paintings/​photos on the walls to the kick ass coffee and tasty grub, this place screams tea at Aunties. And just to be sure, its the good Aunty, n not the one who believes in abstinence, the lord and foosty biscuits.
I got myself some scrambled eggs on toast, an easy dish but one so easily and commonly butchered, but done to utter perfection here. Add to this the excellent presentation of the grub, nicely chilled out music and friendly staff and you have yourself one happy Unilocaler…
Oh, forgot to mention the cakes and such, they deserve a new word… YURMZ!!!

The best coffee and cakes on the planet!