Camphill Café: Fresh, Local Food Done Right

Anyone can visit a farm-based restaurant in August and enjoy a remarkable meal. It takes real confidence in the restaurant’s staff to patronize a local food eatery in March. The Camphill Café has the staff, the produce and the talent to make local food worth eating, year-round.

Each week offers soup and entrée specials featuring what’s available from the Sankanac CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project onsite as well as other local, organic providers. I chose this week’s entrée special ($7), a vegetarian lasagna with broccoli, topped with mozzarella cheese covering tender noodles layered with savory tomato sauce and flecked with broccoli florets.

The “side” salad was a huge mound of buttercrunch lettuce and shredded carrots topped with hulled pumpkin seeds and the house’s miso vinaigrette. The lettuce was fresh, crisp and clean-tasting, the way we all hope lettuce will taste when it’s brought fresh from the earth.  There’s no food so alive with spring as a truly fresh green. 

Regular menu items include chicken salad, curried tuna salad, Labbane cheese (a homemade soft cheese made from Seven Stars Yogurt with Middle Eastern spices [Za'atar] and olive oil) or homemade hummus, served as a sandwich from the onsite bakery’s bread with a side salad or on top of a bed of greens. My friend Sue, who likes Sweetwater Bakery’s bread, chose the tuna salad as a sandwich ($7). The tuna was yellow with just the right amount of curry and came with another huge "side" of the day’s fresh salad.

Beverages are served in large glass goblets. 

“This is the best drink EVER!” said Sue of the Café’s house blended iced chai tea ($3.50) and as she samples everyone’s chai (sweetened tea steeped with Indian spices and served with milk), she should know! 

I found the Cider Punch ($2), a mixture of hibiscus tea, cinnamon and cider from the orchard’s apples, refreshing and “autumnal,” a perfect palate cleanser for dessert. 

Desserts are $4 each and examples are displayed at the counter where you place your order. Sue chose the Apple and Peach Crisp which was a ramekin of baked fruit covered with a buttery strudel topping. I picked the Walnut and Apple Cake With Chocolate Frosting which was two dense layers of apple cake, sprinkled with walnuts and held together with deep chocolate icing.

Service, which is provided by Camphill Village Kimberton Hills residents, is always friendly. They will remember you if you’ve been to the Village before and eagerly inquire about how you are doing. If you want a quiet meal, the cooks at the counter will gently ease the residents to another job, but if you’re looking for conversation, it’s an added bonus. 

Artwork by IKRU (available for sale) decorates the light, airy space for the next three months. By that time, summer vegetables will be in full swing and it will be trendy again to eat at a farm-based restaurant.  Buck that trend by having lunch at the Camphill Café now.  The spring vegetables are waiting for you and they are worth eating.

If You Go:

Location:  , 1601 Pughtown Road, Phoenixville

Directions:  Camphill Village Kimberton Hills is located off Route 113 on Pughtown Road in Kimberton. To reach the café, go in the main entrance and proceed up the drive, past the large stone house, following the drive past the grapevines to the next low building on the left.

Cost:  Entrées:  $7, Drinks:  $2 - $5, Desserts:  $4

Phone:  610-935-3599 (Call for day’s menu and/or group reservations)

Web site:  http://www.camphillkimberton.org/cafe.php

Hours:  Wed. - Sat., 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.; Sun. - Tue., closed

Handicap Accessible:  Yes

Payments accepted:  Personal Check, Cash

Food & dining options:  Organic, Natural

General services:  Take-out, Eat-in

Parking:  Free lot

Features:  Lunch