Opened at the end of February 2025, the Corner Café is a brand new rejuvenation of the coffee and food spot attached to the New Art Exchange, the UK’s largest gallery dedicated to contemporary visual arts from the Global Ethnic Majority. With a lack of community-led food, drink and social spaces present in the Hyson Green area, the NAE team sought to provide that, enlisting community on everything about the venue, from the decor, to the food, to the events. We popped down to see the colourful results.
It’s a bright, sunny day when I cross the Forest Recreation Ground to the New Art Exchange: an art gallery situated on the fringes of Hyson Green. I’m here to see the brand new iteration of its adjoining café, now called the Corner Café.
Until now I’ve purely associated this spot with the gallery, knowing it in my mind as just ‘the café at NAE’: a place to sit for a quick brew after checking out the exhibition just a few yards away. But when I enter it’s clear that it’s now a place to be enjoyed for its own sake. The new interior, consisting of orange furnishing, patterned lampshades and hanging art with tasteful touches of horticulture, is quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.
“We knew we needed a revamp,” says Adam Roe, Executive Director at NAE. “But the question was always ‘what would work best?’ The clear message was consultation with communities in the area, to understand what they wanted. It was also key that this project should fit under the umbrella of ‘citizen led’, as that’s a big part of who we are and what we do.”
In Hyson Green there have been very few successful attempts to create a proper, independent, community-driven ‘third-space’ for food and drink, but the NAE team found that there was a powerful desire for one when they reached locals, receiving lots of input as to what the ideal interior design for such a place would look like. The next step was to hire a local sustainable architecture firm; Adam and the team decided to partner with From the Ground Up, a firm led by local Will Harvey.
We see ourselves as a hub where people can come enjoy different cultures but we also see this as an opportunity: our role is draw people across the city to Hyson Green and counteract that stigma about it, an unfair one to honest
“We predominantly work in participatory design which is why this project was so good for us,” says Will. “We generate methods of co-designing with people, and the design at the end is so much stronger as a result. If people have got some sort of co-ownership they’re much more likely to help maintain the end product, as opposed to having had no input in the journey.”
Hyson Green is the most ethnically and culturally diverse neighbourhood in Nottingham, a fact that’s always been central to the business approach of the New Art Exchange. Perhaps unsurprisingly, but importantly, the team found once work started on the cafe that an approach integrating the surrounding cultural diversity would remain important, from the food and drink that they would be serving there, to the events that they would be hosting.
“The bigger vision for us is how we can draw in opportunity from the rest of our community,” says Peter Sharratt, who is Operations Manager at the Corner Café. “It’s multifold. We see ourselves as a hub where people can come enjoy different cultures but we also see this as an opportunity: our role is draw people across the city to Hyson Green and counteract that stigma about it - an unfair one to be honest, and hopefully our aim, in the long term is the growth of Hyson Green by providing some interesting offers for food and entertainment, so maybe we can do our part for changing the fortunes of the area.”
Since the Café opened at the end of February 2025, the result of these plans and discussions has been a pretty delicious and affordable menu encompassing flavoursome flatbreads and fresh, revitalizing rice bowls, each dish kept below ten pounds. After finishing my conversation with the team I treat myself to a light daal-based rice bowl, which serves as a great addition to the unseasonably sunny weather.
The team is continuing to think about the needs of locals. Members of the Baitul Jabbar Mosque across the street, for example, frequent the café looking for good strong espresso, which the team is always ready to provide.
If we work with our community and people who exist around us and with us to make things better; giving that mandate of decision making, we think it’s more constructive than going: ‘this is what you need'.
Events held at the Corner Café are also intended as a demonstration of Hyson Green’s cultural diversity, from the regular Friday Night Socials, set to include live music, and the pay-what-you-can community cafés. On each of these occasions, the spotlight will turn to a different ethnic community, of which there are many underrepresented in Nottingham, says Olga Andrade, Marketing Manager at NAE.
“The whole point of Friday night socials is to give a platform for grassroots local talent, but also cultural exchange: connecting with different communities from Nottingham, giving them a chance to showcase their culture to other people.” says Olga, “It’s all about opportunities and visibility. This Friday we’re removing all the furniture, and it will purely become a space for the Brazilian Cultural Centre to do a dance workshop and live music, open to everyone.”
Openness, the team say, is the key quality they’re aiming for, as they continue to run the Corner Café. They hope that when folks wander down Gregory Boulevard they’ll feel all-the-more welcome to come inside and discover a fresh new space, in between work and home.
It’s a great opportunity that they’ve capitalised on, I say, in that the lack hitherto of these kinds of spaces in Hyson Green has intensified the desire for them all the more. They agree: “If we work with our community and people who exist around us and with us to make things better; giving that mandate of decision making, we think it’s more constructive than going: ‘this is what you need,” says Adam Roe, “It’s such a big part of everything that we do.”
Visit the Corner Cafe at New Art Exchange at 41 Gregory Boulevard, NG7 6BE. While you’re at it, check out their latest exhibition ‘The Lovers’ by Sunil Gupta & Charan Singh on until 3 May.
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