You Choose — Kitty Cafe

Venue: Kitty Café, Grand Central, B2 4BF; website 
Choice: Gizmo Chooser: Founder, Kate Charles-Richards

We're dog people. We just are. So it was with a decent dollop of scepticism that we accepted an invitation to a preview of Kitty Café, home to 27 rescue cats, a clinical cattery and a fully functioning (reassuringly sealed off) kitchen. Here's the concept: book an hour-long slot at the happily mismatching big space for £6, bask in the cat paraphernalia and, if our experience was anything to go by, get approached by cats and kittens of all colours and sizes, or maybe just watch them climbing on things. Turns out cats are very good at that. At all times, the stars of the show can choose to return to the quiet of their cattery (via interconnected gaps in the interior walls) and the cafe has its own rescue home — seven of the kitties that will live in Brum were a feral litter, saved from the local area the day before our visit. Talking of which, so early was our look-see, that the lunches, coffees and cakes that will be for the buying were not yet available — much like Olympic athletes, the cats were acclimatising. So we did the only logical thing and made the owner pick their favourite cat instead of a dish. The correct answer is Gizmo, this handsome fella, who has been at the original Nottingham cafe since he was a kitten. Kitty Café opens its triple safe doors to the public on Monday, where Grand Central's Handmade Burger Company used to be. Dogs though. Book