{"id":13053,"date":"2012-11-13T11:40:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T11:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=13053"},"modified":"2012-11-13T11:40:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T11:40:02","slug":"cardiff-character-david-le-masurier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-david-le-masurier\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: David Le Masurier"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13055\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13055\" title=\"Food_DavidWide_Big_SY\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13055\" title=\"Food_DavidWide_Big_SY\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Food_DavidWide_Big_SY-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">David is the founder of the Pettigrew Tea Rooms<\/p><\/div>\n<p>David Le Masurier potters in from the kitchen and places a pot of peach tea on the table, before settling down into a secondhand chair. He is the founder of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pettigrew-tearooms.com\">Pettigrew Tea Rooms<\/a>, a small caf\u00e9 with a large cult following that opened last March in Bute Park.<\/p>\n<p>Having left his corporate job in hospitality, David decided to pursue his dream of setting up a caf\u00e9, chronicling his journey every step on the way in a blog called <a href=\"http:\/\/iwanttobakefree.blogspot.co.uk\">\u2018I Want To Bake Free\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0He quickly became a hit, and now David is as much a part of the character of the little tea room as the quirky collection mismatched china mugs in the corner and the old typewriter that sits on the windowsill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The pursuit of a dream<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>David\u2019s pride in his achievement is a result of knowing just how much effort he put into making it happen. Not only are the Pettigrew Tea Rooms currently ranked as the number one restaurant in Cardiff on Trip Advisor, but its opening was also filmed for The Great British Bake Off. Glancing over the room, he says, \u201cWhen I walk in here I know what was involved. I was lucky, but also I worked for it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to the romantic notion that pursuing your dreams means first throwing your caution to the wind, David stresses that caution was in fact his constant companion on his entire journey. \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in risk limitation,\u201d he says. He spent four months, for instance, writing his application for the venue. He says that the final document was \u201cconsiderably longer than my dissertation\u201d but adds with a wry smile that \u201cit was all good fun, really &#8211; in retrospect!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>David, who turned 30 just before the tea rooms opened, acknowledges he felt some anxiety over pinning all his hopes on one idea. He recounts, \u201cI thought at the time, I\u2019m either going to hit my thirties, and \u2018Yay! Tea room dream!\u2019,<em> <\/em>or I\u2019m going to hit my thirties, having made a lot of noise about all of this, and no tea room,<em> <\/em>no business, nothing at all. And it was literally 50\/50. But when opportunities come about, you\u2019ve obviously got to go for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A caf\u00e9 with character<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>David talks about his tea rooms with an affection that is rather endearing. He skips verbally around the room, explaining one item and then another. There\u2019s the clock on the wall that belonged to his grandmother\u2019s brother, a garland of autumn leaves that he crafted himself and &#8211; he literally springs up this time &#8211; a chair that he found at the police auctions in Pontypridd. He picks it up and points out the individual details in its design: \u201cThe barley twist on this is just gorgeous, and I love the little heart shape on there. I think I see individual beauty in things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomeone came here once and said, \u2018Oh, your chairs, they need a good rub down.\u2019 But I think, \u2018No, that\u2019s just years of use &#8211; someone\u2019s picked that chair up and moved it. It\u2019s beautiful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Le Masurier potters in from the kitchen and places a pot of peach tea on the table, before settling down into a secondhand chair. He is the founder of the Pettigrew Tea Rooms, a small caf\u00e9 with a large cult following that opened last March in Bute Park. Having left his corporate job in hospitality, David decided to pursue his dream of setting up a caf\u00e9, chronicling his journey every step on the way in a blog called \u2018I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":13054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1436,2380,2381,2382,2383,2200],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-cafe","tag-david-le-masurier","tag-great-british-bake-off","tag-i-want-to-bake-free","tag-pettigrew-tea-rooms","tag-tea"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: David Le Masurier - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-david-le-masurier\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: David Le Masurier - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Le Masurier potters in from the kitchen and places a pot of peach tea on the table, before settling down into a secondhand chair. 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