Whenever I’m going to Newcastle, I all the time make a beeline for The Biscuit Factory in the creative district of Ouseburn. It’s the UK’s largest impartial artwork, craft and design gallery and was previously The Tyne Biscuit Factory, baking “fashionable biscuits of the day”. Fashionable biscuits apart, TBF is a stunning, Victorian-era, colour-bright artwork house that’s excellent for a sluggish hour or two of artwork immersion with a wonderful native café, The Factory Kitchen, that has sky-high views – seize a sun-dappled desk and make mine a smoked mackerel, poached eggs and pickled beetroot on sourdough with a just-warm, velvety latte.
More on the district, although. If, like me, weekends are extraordinarily valuable, and you’re keen on scouting a metropolis for its creative corners, arty Ouseburn has the finest vitality. It is ripe for chatty, laughter-fuelled catch-ups with my Singapore gang, who hail from the north and dwell of their dwelling cities now. After a hectic work and household week, it was a reward when my good friend primarily based in Newcastle organised the entire journey. Our first cease was TBF earlier than an distinctive brunch, and afterwards we did a strolling path round Ouseburn and completed at an iconic, perfectly-fizzy pub earlier than dwelling (The Free Trade Inn). As the Irish proverb goes: “A good laugh and long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”
Ouseburn is a dynamic pocket of the metropolis, hemming the Ouseburn River. There’s all of life’s nice issues right here: this avant-garde suburb with its personal subculture has winding river walks and boho avenue artwork, sensible galleries and craft areas, vintage and indie store treasures, a metropolis farm, under-the-radar gigs and festivals – together with a hip music venue in an outdated flax mill – and a burgeoning, thrilling culinary scene. It’s Newcastle’s most occurring group, paying homage to Melbourne’s Fitzroy, the place I as soon as lived, ate $3 pizza at Bimbo’s Deluxe (actual title), frolicked on the plant-framed, mismatched 70s sofas at Black Cat and went on seductive Great Ocean Road journeys most weekends – Newcastle’s model being the seashores of Northumberland, comparable to my favorite Embelton Bay.