The corner tables
The four alcoves beneath the north shelves are unreserved by custom, and by equally firm custom belong to whoever arrived first and is still working.
Central Courtyard
Pure Bliss Café
Dark wood, purple velvet, brass and low amber light — the unofficial living room of St. Estè.
The room
A coffee house built like a library
Pure Bliss occupies the ground floor of the east range, a room panelled in dark oak in 1889 and left almost untouched since. Edison chandeliers hang from brass rings, deep velvet chairs gather around marble tables, and towering shelves of leather-bound volumes form alcoves for quiet study and long conversation.
The air holds coffee, butter pastry and aged paper. Nothing about the room is hurried: the espresso is pulled slowly, the tea is poured at table, and no one has ever been asked to give up a chair.
Central Courtyard · Open 07:00 – 23:00 · Term and vacation
At the counter
What is served
Coffee & chocolate
- Valais espresso, roasted in the old town
- Café crème served in porcelain
- Viennese hot chocolate with alpine cream
- Cardamom flat white
Tea room
- First-flush Darjeeling, poured at table
- Verbena and mountain thyme tisane
- Smoked Lapsang, served after four
- Full high tea, Fridays and Saturdays
Kitchen
- Butter croissants from the Rue du Bourg bakery
- Rye tartines with valley cheese
- Plum and almond tart
- Late supper board until closing
Customs
How the room is kept
House committees
Society executives plan galas and Charity Cup campaigns over the long marble counter. More of the university's social calendar is settled here than in any office.
After practice
Athletes arrive from Dragon Stadium and the Ice Centre in kit, and the kitchen keeps the supper board out for them until the doors close at eleven.
Reading hours
From nine at night the room falls quiet without anyone asking. Conversation moves to the front bar; the shelves keep the back.