Boar Likes: Cosmopolitan Spa

**Leamington is a melting pot of different cultures. Gone are the days of fusty provincialism, the sedate scene of Betjeman poems and petticoated day-tourists flocking to its healing waters. Today’s Leamington is awash with an effervescent community of Portuguese, Poles, Italians and Turks – to name but a few – enticed by employment opportunities and a new way of life.**

One such upshot of the last decade’s immigration has been the honeypot of cafés and eateries unfurled across the town. Authentic, family-run establishments are to be found nestled on most streets. These places ooze individuality and have bags of character. New noises, smells, and tastes charm their customers. Tax-dodging chains are thankfully the exception to the rule in this intimate spa town.

The trio of Italian cafés, Gusto Ricco, Corleones’, and Bar Angeli, are cases in point. Waitresses tackle the rickety, vertiginous stairs of Gusto Ricco to attend to huddled customers, while virtuoso baristas work masterfully away on the ground floor. Bar Angeli boasts a mammoth bean roaster and rustic copper piping as old hessian coffee sacks slump up against its counters.

The quaint French deli, Comme-ci, Comme-ça sees servers seamlessly switching from mother tongue to English as they hand over pre-ordered brioche to local French expats. The Brazilian-Portuguese café, Borges, just off leaf-dappled Regents Grove is continuously aflurry with people chatting away in various languages. Creased imported newspapers absorb coffee rings as unusual delicacies glisten on the pastry counter. That particular Saturday afternoon’s football results were of little regard to the majority, assembled contently in these little enclaves that evoke the essential familiarity of home. Of course these places are just a few examples of Leamington’s evolving character.

Immigration brings uniqueness, eccentricity, and novelty to our country. Without it we would be in stasis. The integration of other communities into the bosom of Leamington society has not upset the equilibrium, but instead conferred it a distinctiveness that other towns struggle to achieve. And I for one am a content resident.