Surrey Hills · Silent Pool
A cafe at the end of a walk should do two things: be exactly where you need it, and be worth stopping for. This one manages both.
Mandira's Kitchen sits on the walking route above Silent Pool, near Newlands Corner, the Pilgrims Way and the North Downs Way. You can reach it muddy, with a dog, and nobody will mind.
Inside the 400-year-old barn, and out on the patio over the hills, there is masala chai, Indian lunch, cake and Afternoon Tea. The samosas are the reason people stop walking and stay a while.
What you actually eat here
Lunch, seven days a week
Lunch is Indian street food, the kind Mandira grew up eating, not a curry-house menu. Samosa chaat with tamarind drizzle, papri chaat, biryani, kathi rolls, keema pav, the forbidden chilli cheese toast, all handmade with our own chutneys. Chai ice cream and lychee martini sorbet if you have room. Gluten-free options. Eat in the barn or out on the patio over the pool. Booking a table is wise, especially at weekends.
The weekend thali
At weekends we make a limited number of thalis: a round platter of small dishes that changes every week, and comes with a Bollywood playlist, a film recommendation and a quiz, because a thali should be an afternoon, not a plate. They must be pre-booked and are picked up Friday or Saturday. If you are further afield or on the monthly subscription, we can post one (it arrives the Tuesday after).
Freezer meals to take home
The same food, cooked by hand in small batches in the barn and frozen the same day, never cooked from frozen in a factory. Take a stack home from the cafe after lunch, or have them delivered anywhere in the UK in insulated boxes, free over £100. Larger trays for four or ten when people are coming over and you would rather they thought you cooked.
A barn above one of England's strangest pools
Silent Pool is a spring-fed former chalk quarry on the Albury Estate, so still and so clear it looks lit from below. Tennyson came here to think. Agatha Christie's car was found just up the hill at Newlands Corner in 1926. There is a legend about a girl called Emma and a king on a horse, which may be Victorian invention but is told anyway, usually in a lowered voice. Our barn sits on the track just above all of it, where pilgrims once walked the old North Downs way and the smell of ground cardamom now drifts across the hills by mid-morning. Four hundred years a cowshed. These days, something rather better fed.
Good questions, briefly answered
Which cafe is best for a Surrey Hills walk?
Mandira's Kitchen sits directly on the walking route above Silent Pool, near Newlands Corner and the North Downs Way, serving Indian lunch, masala chai, cake and Afternoon Tea to walkers seven days a week.
Can I turn up muddy with a dog?
Yes. Muddy boots and dogs on leads are entirely normal on the patio here. It is built for walkers.
Is the food just sandwiches?
No. It is handmade Indian food: samosas, chaats, biryani, kathi rolls and more, plus cakes and Indian Afternoon Tea, from an 11-time Great Taste Award winner.
Where is it and is there parking?
Silent Pool, Shere Road, Albury, Surrey GU5 9BW. Park in the Silent Pool car park and register at the cafe for free parking.
Book a table after your walk
Open seven days a week, on the track above Silent Pool.
Book a table after your walk →