Secret garden

I walked straight past it, even though I was looking everywhere for the sign. My favourite coffee place can be tricky to find.

It's on my beloved Royal Street, right by the famous Court of Two Sisters, but it's set back from the footpath, through a dark cool tunnel and behind a courtyard garden – the way I've decided every coffee house should be.


We discovered Royal Blend back when we lived in the French Quarter, and I went there for breakfast with Berry and her nanna when we stayed in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. It still has every bit of its charm.

I wanted to ask the girl serving how long it had been there, how old the building was too (like everything in New Orleans, it probably used to be something else) but she kept disappearing – to work! imagine! – so we contented ourselves with watching the fish and seeing barely another soul the whole time we were there. And those we did see were quiet souls.

Which is exactly the way I like it.

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Royal...

Can you choose one favourite street out of your whole country?

I can. My favourite – of all the avenues and streets and roads and boulevards and circles and ways in America – is Royal Street, New Orleans.


To me it feels at once like a lovely mystery and like coming home.

I was going to write all the reasons why, but even in my head they sound like a tourist-book tallying of attractions and histories and quaintnesses... and that's really not what it's about.


It's just that when I'm on Royal Street, I want to stay.

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