One of the most disheartening journeys in Scotland remains driving the M8 from Glasgow to Edinburgh. After finally reaching the Edinburgh City bypass, having righteously avoiding the Wildbean café, Harthill (https://pickymaninavan.com/2025/03/04/wild-bean-cafe-harthill-and-everywhere) there seems to be nowhere for refreshment. Apart from Krispy Kreme donuts and the usual other multinational outlets that sell reasonably priced food-like substances, but not food.
‘Yes there is,’ contradicted a locally-based daughter, ‘Patina. That’s a café for people like you.’
Intrigued by the italics, into which she had implied so much meaning, (a pedantic, coffee obsessed curmudgeon seemed the implied minimum) I headed north on the A720, from which the Patina logo was visible in enormous letters on the side of a multi-storey carpark. Said daughter had described Patina as, ‘A decent café, patisserie, bar thing. It’s nice.’
To reach Patina I drove through Edinburgh Park, a slightly forlorn semi-vacant dystopian ‘Business Park community’, towards the preposterously named Airborn Place.
Patina is easily accessible easily by tram, on foot, ebike, scooter, segway, hoverboard, personal drone, Hawker Harrier VTOL jump jet (Airborn Place…?) and car – even a euro 5 diesel one, but not by Sprinter, Transit, Trafic, Custom, Crafter etc. Patina is not aimed for people exactly like me, because you can’t park there. One can only park in a multi-storey.
Nil by van.
Thus Patina should be struck down from this blog with mighty force and casual, damning indifference. The End.
But I am not so easily thwarted and encouraged by the charmingly amateur anti-parking graffiti (see photo 3) I halted the wagon and strolled into the slight unreality of Airborn Place with a somewhat open mind.
Patina is a very large corner frontage restaurant unit at the bottom of an office block. A triple-height shell which is rather well decorated in the modern café brutalist stylie: big framed art, shelves, hard wood, hard surfaces, aspiration kitchen ingredients and a wash of unwanted acoustic reverb. It’s nothing you readers haven’t got used to café-wise. There is plenty of space and enough hard seats for the captive audience of office workers and visiting cohorts of well-heeled twenty-first century Dunediners for whom this place is catnip once they’ve done the Morrisons shop. IN THEIR CAR.
Patina’s effective staff are friendly in the professional hospitality manner (they don’t really mean it but we all understand the niceties of the service industry), easily coping with a very busy room and extensive exterior seating. The café is not overpriced for Edinburgh – £8.40 (card payment only, why bother asking, this is the near-future) for a superb cinnamon twist thing and a black coffee.
But. But but but. Whilst said coffee is served in a mug and saucer (clearly this is for people like me to gawp at and consider the ramifications thereof: it seems a fine innovation) and is their own Brazilian and Rwandan house blend, I felt the Patina coffee was a bit underwhelming for such a high-end joint. Just not really grabbing the old tastebuds and giving them a good old slap about, you know. Not bad coffee at all though, you understand.
I was still sulking about the car park and looking around with crabbiness in my heart. So I was delighted to observe that the Patina toilets are ungendered. They had added a printed warning to prove it. However the irrational fear of change that people like me have swiftly gave way to the realisation that this was a great advantage for those who are usually obliged to patronise the nastier Gents, as in the near-future you get a very secure nice clean warm little cubicle all to yourself.
Overall, being in Patina feels a bit like being in the establishing shot of a British rom-com where Ewan McGregor is about to stroll in and clap eyes on Eva Green slurping an oatmilk flat white. Not if I see her first though. I hear she really likes vans. Perhaps we can test drive the new Renault Master together…
Outside I sat in the huge pedestrianised expanse of Airborn Place (where Eva and I could park our many vans. Euro 6 ones, I’m not a thoughtless beast. Actually I think Eva might be getting me an electric Transit for my birthday) breathing clean air in the sunshine. Children rolled past in huge plastic cups, daschunds milled about and purposeful types strolled towards yoga classes or the nearby padel ball court as if someone had just shouted, ‘Action’. There are interesting public artworks but I zeroed in on the prominent vile ad-agency generated mottoes decorating the boards concealing empty lots for apartment blocks that won’t be built for some time. On closer inspection, I found said homilies were infact a message of hope for the future from local primary school children. Let’s hope they will be able to afford a flat after graduation. If they ever get built.
Wending back to my satisfyingly semi-legally parked van I reflected that the immediate future is unwritten and judging by Patina, might not all be bad, even for people like me. Patina is a decent-enough modern establishment, open and friendly to all from 08.00. Even if it does feel a bit like a film set.
Patina can be reached by in-line roller blade, laser hoverfloat, whilst being towed by a cockerpoo, jetpack, skateboard, microlight…but not by van.
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