Paisley’s: A Neighborhood Cafe
1024 E Pike St, 328-7474
Mon-Thurs 11 am-10 pm, Fri 11 am-midnight, Sat 9 am-midnight, Sun 9 am-10 pm.
Paisley’s is in the space that was for a while the Blue Willow Teahouse and then was something else that looked a lot like the Blue Willow Teahouse and now is Paisley’s. It’s a strange hybrid, what with the grassy walls and maroon (rather abstract) banquettes and blown-glass vessels of a more expensive mid-’90s restaurant, the mandala art and mixed soundtrack (bossa nova, jazz, sitar) of a lower-priced ethnic place, and the pastry case of a particularly nice coffeehouse, but there it is.
I don’t know if a mismatched place like Paisley’s can survive, with its not-quite-fused fusion of casual and upscale–the food, to my mind, costs a bit more than “neighborhood cafe” suggests; even the lunches at Crave, a few blocks away, don’t top $10–which is too bad, because most of the food I’ve had at Paisley’s was pretty good, and the chef has a flair for contrasts. A lamb stew with saffron and couscous ($10.95) was mellow with squash and perky with currants; sweet-potato gnocchi ($10.95) were deeply smoky, brightened up with créme fra–che and sautéed greens. The sandwiches are moderately full of considered ingredients, such as a velvety chicken breast on an Italian roll ($8.95) with cheese, spinach, and an apple chutney of surprising sweetness and depth. (Mayo and a tart baba gannouj enlivened a falafel sandwich [$7.95], which remained, however, sort of dry.)
If it were five years ago, I’d say that Paisley’s was prepared for the neighborhood’s gentrification, waiting for the money to roll in and displace the wandering hipsters. These days it doesn’t seem so true; it’s just an earnest little place around the corner from pierced and tattooed kids having a smoke on a break from their Value Village jobs. Will the neighborhood change, or will Paisley’s change again? Wait and see.