Lark Lane beneath the blue midurban sky.

Lark lane for my money is the cozier and more intimate of Liverpool’s two famous lanes. {Outsiders like myself will probably be surprised to find nothing much on the famed Penny Lane other than a wine bar some nice terrace houses and a Laundromat.} Lark Lane isn’t Greenwich Village by any objective standard, but there is a definite village feel to the place. Lark Lane has for the most part a subtle almost too hard to detect bohemian undercurrent. You’re about one hundred and twenty two times as likely to see someone with a shaved head enclosed in a shell suit as you are a full blooded Rastafarian, and mostly what you run up against are respectable suburban folk who come in for a night out somewhere that’s easier to get to or find parking than the city center. On a purely aesthetic level, I think it’d be hard to find a finer looking lane in the whole of the northwest. It’s the sort of lane that you wish some great frost giant would pluck from its current location and set down in the Pennines or Black Mountains far away from the savage skallies that are known to roam these areas.

The lane’s central point, it’s axis mundi, is somewhere around the Tudor Revival cum Scandinavian Mountain Lodge that now houses Maranto's, a fairly mundane sort of eating establishment run entirely by folks from the continent. Spreading out to the east and west is a smorgasbord of late Victorian buildings, old fire stations, schools and other civic buildings that now host a whole slew of restaurants and would-be boutiques that live harmoniously together. All the buildings and blocks of the lane are surprisingly different, all seemed to have been wrought individually and they represent just about every sort of architectural style of the last one hundred years or so and range from late Victorian pubs to late 60s council flats to brand spanking new kitsch. The lane also hosts at least one example of just about every major ethnic restaurant popular in England: Thai, Chinese, Jamaican, Mexican, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, and Italian. However with a few exceptions they are unexceptional and some I’d avoid at all costs, but I’ll come back to that later.
I’d start the day on the lane by visiting the good people at the Greendays Café. It’s one of a handful of vegetarian (or mostly vegetarian) restaurants in the whole of Liverpool, and it does a pretty good job of it. The menu ain’t exactly got a lot on it to choose from, but that's often a good thing and they do serve up what must be one of the best veggie breakfasts known to humanity. It’s the only place I know that serves up something that approximates hashbrown (an American delicacy), and the tomatoes, sausages and other bits are free from the light coating of charcoal that is ubiquitous on most inferior fry ups. I could go on and on about the veggie breakfast and how lush and wholesome a thing it is, but I’ll crack on to the service which is a fair bit friendlier than most, and the wait staff still have a good bit of that scouse equalitarianism that helps remind you that your not in Los Angeles or even Manchester.
On the first floor of this building is the Lark Lane Gallery which isn’t a gallery, but the local nick-nack shop where you can find the usual assortment of feminist greeting cards, pop icon t-shirts, incense, disguise kits, wonder woman coffee mugs and other essentials for modern life.
Of the ethnic restaurants, I’ve had good luck with only a handful and no luck or bad luck with the rest. I truly want to like the Que Pasa Cantina, but after initially being impressed with the Taco Salad and quesadilla they serve up, I have since had three visits that have left me inclined never to step foot in the place again except to get a pint of San Miguel which seems to be all the lunch crowd does anyway. The main problem seems to be their ability to get food from the kitchen to your table, and then there’s the guacamole which can sometimes taste like ground hickory nuts coated in mayo. I’ll admit that I’m in such desperate need for a burrito fix I’ll probably go back for a fifth visit, but I’ll make sure I have hours to kill and friends who don’t mind watching me eat while they helplessly look around for any sign that what they ordered will appear from out the kitchen.

If you’re hungry and you happen to pass a Greek restaurant on Lark Lane then I suggest you don’t slow down, but keep right on walking down to Keith’s Wine bar where they do a right proper Mediterranean platter. I’ve only been in the Greek restaurant once, but after ordering pita bread to go with my hummus I was brought an oversized baf which I was assured by the waitress was pita bread. I’ve never been to Greece, and maybe I’ve never really even eaten at an authentic Greek restaurant, but I’m not willing to believe that the people living in the Greek isles eat hamburger buns with their grilled haloumi all on the word of one scouse waitress.
If you’re seeking a pub with nice murals and dark interior and you’re willing to pay London prices for your beer then try Negresco. Attached to it is the newly renamed restaurant side of the business, Fargo, which I assume is supposed to be a north American style restaurant, but instead of doing some research on what the peoples of that continent eat on a regular basis they’ve decided to just to serve standard English faire with a few exotic food items thrown in haphazardly. It would help somewhat if the exotic additions were of North American origin, but most do not appear to hail from anywhere within the western hemisphere. The American breakfast consisted basically of a British fry up served on top of a pancake along with some sort of sliced Italian meat. If they called it world fusion food then I’d be more willing to believe it. I also didn’t have much luck with their sister restaurant down town, which boasts an equally dark and brooding interior along with a sacrificial alter.

Down the way a bit is the Moon and Pea which is fully stocked most days during the week, but if you can get a seat then it’s as good a place as any to have lunch or dinner. It’s run by an all female crew, and I can’t complain about anything I’ve had their except for the big mushy chips, but even there they offer an alternative for us crispy French fry loving folk, so all is well and good in this tiny little café. If you’re looking for a place with a bit louder music and larger front windows then head diagonally across the street to Keith’s Wine Bar which has the best priced food on Lark and probably all of south central Liverpool. The pub across the street does the typical two meals for 5 quid, but Keith’s has better variety and what comes out of the kitchen tastes surprisingly fresh and pleasing. The front rooms present you with a good vantage point to watch life on the lane, but the place can get overrun and turn into a cacophony of music, conversation, and waiters calling out your order, which makes it hard to hear the person across from you. If you wonder by when it’s less busy then take that rare opportunity to grab a curb side seat and load up on a veritable cornucopia of cheap nachos, ploughman’s, sandwiches, soup and bread, Mediterranean platters and vino del casa. If wine ain’t your thing, then the Albert Pub across the way has you covered. They got the usual suspects along with two or three varieties of real ale that often includes the local Cain’s ale, Liverpool in a pint that is.