These days it is refreshing to get a genuinely independent café where you know you can rely on both excellent fresh food and great personal service. In Flowers Café, St James Place, Taunton, you canfind just one such café.

We popped in during a busy early June lunch time and enjoyed the normally continental treat offreshly pressed orange juice while we perused the many choices on the menu. Tucked away in apleasant and historic arcade that might easily be overlooked if you aren’t in the know, Flowers offers seating both inside (with the nice touch of small novelties on the tables to ‘test the mind’) and lots of parasol-draped tables in the pretty courtyard for eating al fresco.

We decided on one of the specials, a delicious panini with spicy meatballs and cheese in a chilli dressing and a simple but beautifully cooked tuna jacket potato, both came with a fresh mixed salad. Service at Flowers is always speedy and always very polite and there is a genuine buzz of conversation at this café, where people of all walks seem to feel at home.

Our lunch this time was completed by a delicious home-cooked sticky toffee pudding with custard and a pleasant chat with the proprietor.

I was pleased to learn that Flowers is rare in offering an extensive gluten-free menu and that the same business has diversified by running pastry deliveries far and wide in the Westcountry and even does outside events catering.

So, I heartily recommend getting off the main street sometimes and exploring some of the delights of the smaller premises tucked away off the back streets.