Opening its doors early this year, The Gatehouse cafe and bistro has been busy introducing its food menu and kitting itself out in top notch interiors. Now ready for its close up, we sent down one photographer and one writer to investigate.
Use the arrows to click through the gallery above.
Situated in the heart of Kelham Island, The Gatehouse looks like a snug bistro from the outside, but step in and you’ll see it stretch back into a roomy dining space. Light floods through the windows and a black iron staircase in the centre of the room leads upstairs into a more open and formal restaurant area.
The place oozes with a rustic, welcoming charm, and throughout the week focuses on providing great coffee, food and atmosphere for customers to enjoy. So finally, we have a good café open late around this neck of the woods! They open until 8pm Mon-Weds, 10pm Thurs-Sat and 7pm on Sundays.
“Coffee runs from when we open to when we close,” manager Joe Cross tells Exposed. “We seem to be getting quite a few people who are doing shift work coming in at 6/7 o’clock at night and having a few drinks, so that’s nice because there’s no place that’s open until that time around here. We use brilliant local roasters Smith Street for our coffee; they do a decaf and a guest blend too.”
The Gatehouse also serve a tempting selection of other drinks, including bottled craft beers and ales, three types of red and white wines, and plenty of spirits, prosecco and champagne. “We’re going to treat cocktails like the menu and keep changing it around every couple of months, keep it all fresh,” says Joe. And for those looking to celebrate the weekend in style, on Fridays from 12-8pm they have a ‘Happy Afternoon Special’ where you can get two cocktails for £10.
“Good food is also hugely important to us. We’ve got three menus: breakfast, lunch and a bistro that’s all fresh. We’re trying to keep everything reasonably healthy as well. We’re keeping breakfast and lunch quite casual and light, not big, horrible, greasy things, and then there’s the bistro on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Mark, the head chef, is classically trained to Rosette Standard. We’re still quite new but Friday and Saturday nights are really great for us in particular. It’s all fresh, it’s all interesting; the menu changes on a monthly basis. There are no starters or mains, just small plates and large plates.
The menus we try to keep ‘Sheffield’, if you like, because we don’t want to do anything too fancy and London-esque – people aren’t interested in it. We also like tie in with local things like Peddler Market , so we do drink and food specials during those events which are really popular.”
Plans are in the works for adding new events such as themed nights and BBQs on the terrace when the summer rolls around. Another great addition to the Kelham family and a place to relax, read, chat and even work if you want to get out the house but don’t fancy the pub. Treat yourself to a visit when you’re next in the area.
Find The Gatehouse at 17 Alma St, S3 8SA.
