Scandinavian café near Ipswich celebrates first year serving diners

The Milk Shed Café, in Hadleigh Road in Sproughton, launched at the start of May last year.

It has proved a hit with diners, serving up dishes including crispy and buttery Nordic waffles, mackerel and poached eggs on sourdough, Smørrebrød (a traditional open sandwich), Skagenröra (prawn salad), meatballs and herrings.

Run by husband and wife team Clare and Scott Forrest, the Milk Shed started out slowly, following the motto 'du skal kravle, før du kan gå' – which translates as "you have to learn to crawl before you can walk."

The Milk Shed has been bringing Scandinavian inspired food to Sproughton since the end of last April (Image: The Milk Shed)

The Milk Shed's bosses believe it has gone from "strength to strength" as they gauged what customers wanted, and gained the confidence to work with their chef, Surrey Rogers, to further develop their theme.

Scott, who alongside his wife takes a hands-on approach to the café, said: "The pandemic was good for us in a funny sort of way - it allowed us to slowly develop our business and not to get ahead of ourselves with all of the ideas that we had in our heads.

"For us, the pace has been perfect and we’re delighted to have built up a great reputation, mostly via word of mouth, over our first year.”

Inside the Nordic-inspired cafe (Image: The Milk Shed)

Recently, the Milk Shed has introduced a pantry that offers customers the chance to take home Nordic products including forest scented candles, snacks and goodies.

Summing up their first year, Clare said: "We have loved every minute of our year-long journey. It’s been slower than we intended but it’s given us time to do things in a considered, relaxed way.

"We’ve not only fashioned the Milk Shed Café in a Scandi style - we’ve even begun to think that way. There’s always time to consider things with a little coffee, cake and fika.”

Starting out slowly, the Milk Shed expanded upon their Scandi theme as they grew in confidence (Image: The Milk Shed)