Category Archives: Cafes

Coffee Spots which also offer food

Brother Hubbard

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The Brother Hubbard logo: 'brother hubbard' in a large, white circle.Brother Hubbard, on Capel Street, just north of the River Liffey, was on my list even before I set off for Dublin. However, when 3FE recommended it as “the place to go for food as well as coffee”, that settled the question of where to meet my friend Sarah for Sunday morning brunch.

Brother Hubbard is as much about the food as it is about the coffee, if not more so (although Brother Hubbard may disagree). Serving breakfast and lunch on weekdays, and brunch at the weekends, it’s a cosy, friendly, welcoming place, the ideal spot to start my Sunday morning. The food is inventive, with a Middle-eastern twist, and the menu changes on a seasonal basis. The coffee menu (all espresso-based) is refreshingly simple. It dispenses with descriptions of beans, sizes and types of drink, merely stating that the coffee’s served “as you like it”.

Brother Hubbard has recently expanded into the shop next door, which has been christened “Little Brother”. I only managed to stick my nose in through the dividing doorway, but I get the impression that it’s more the coffee-shop side of the business and clearly one for my next visit to Dublin.

October 2019: I finally made it back to Brother Hubbard, now Brother Hubbard North, which is a vastly expanded operation, which stays open in the evenings five days a week for dinner.

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Bewley’s Grafton Street Café

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An espresso from Bewley's on Grafton Street. One could argue that no trip to Dublin is complete without a visit to the iconic Bewley’s Café on Grafton Street, which first opened its doors in 1927. It’s one of those names that is associated with the great cafés of the past (such as Café de Flore), and certainly one I had heard of long before my Coffee Spot days. With its gorgeous façade, sumptuous interior, lovely artwork and full table service, it’s definitely an experience. As regular readers will know, it’s exactly the sort of experience that I like (for example, another Parisian favourite, Angelina, springs to mind).

It helps that the coffee’s not too bad either. All roasted on the premises, Bewley’s offers a standard espresso-based menu, along with the option of a cafetiere for one or two, plus tea, hot chocolate and soft drinks. There’s a very tempting (and large) range of cakes and pastries, plus full breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. There’s also a range of wine, cocktails, beer and cider.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s an intimate little theatre on the top floor, which puts on one-act plays at lunchtime (complete with optional light lunch) and cabaret, jazz and comedy in the evenings.

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3FE Grand Canal Street

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The 3FE logo, simply the letters 3fE in cursive script, with the 3 a mirror image of the E3FE, short for Third Floor Espresso, is, disappointingly, on the ground floor of its building on Dublin’s Grand Canal Street. However, that’s pretty much the only disappointing thing about it. 3FE was the one place that everyone said I should visit in Dublin, its fame having spread even to Philadelphia, where barista Willa, who works in Menagerie Coffee/Elixr, recommended it!

3FE is both roaster and coffee shop, the roastery being down by the ferry terminal. 3FE roasts for its own use, as well as supplying other shops in Dublin and beyond. Like many small-batch roasters, 3FE regularly rotates what it’s roasting and serves whatever it has roasted/in stock at the moment. In an innovative move, 3FE only serves single-origin beans, offering a choice of three, which can be had as espresso or filter.

This makes for a refreshing coffee menu, since it only lists the beans, not the brew methods, thus shifting the focus back onto what’s important, the coffee itself. That’s not to say 3FE isn’t as obsessed as the next coffee geek about brew methods, with a new Mahlkönig EK-43 grinder and one of the first Victoria Arduino Black Eagle espresso machines, installed the day before my visit!

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Fortitude

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The logo from the door at Fortitude in Edinburgh: Espresso & Brew Bar, plus Coffee Merchant.When I first visited Edinburgh’s Fortitude in April 2014, it had been open all of four weeks. A self-titled espresso & brew bar, plus coffee merchant, Fortitude lived up to the billing back then. These days it’s added a decent food offering and has turned itself into a pretty decent roaster. Originally using London‘s Workshop and regularly-rotating guests, these days all the coffee is roasted in-house (but sadly not on-site, where there’s no room for a roaster), Fortitude sourcing some exceptional single-origins, with two options on espresso and four on pour-over through the Kalita Wave.

It helps that Fortitude’s a lovely spot in which to drink your coffee, with its high ceilings and uncluttered layout. There’s not much seating, but it’s well laid-out and very laptop friendly, with free Wifi and power outlets at every table. You’re also assured of a warm welcome from husband and wife team, Matt and Helen, although when I returned at the end of December 2018, they were off roasting. Instead I was equally well-looked after by Cristabel and Niall.

If you’re hungry, there are small breakfast and lunch menus, with a tempting selection of toast, sandwiches and soup, plus a decent range of cake.

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Wild & Wood Coffee: Update

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Wild & Wood: genius use of space and an lovely, all wooden interiorSadly, the weekend hasn’t started early: it’s just a Saturday Supplement on a Wednesday… By way of explanation, I have such a backlog of Saturday Spots, plus a few updates (like this one) and my reports from the London Coffee Festival, that I’m running short of Saturdays! So, for the next few weeks, Wednesday is the new Saturday as I attempt to catch up…

Wild & Wood Coffee is one of the first places I covered for the Coffee Spot, a favourite haunt of mine from my pre-Coffee Spot days. Back then, as a regular visitor to the British Museum, I would often break my day with a trip to Wild & Wood for afternoon coffee and cake.

These days, when I head up to London, I’m usually on the prowl for new Coffee Spots and I don’t get much time to visit the British Museum. Indeed, I don’t get a lot of time to check out my favourite Coffee Spots, old or new. So, when I visited the British Museum with a friend a couple of weeks ago and she suggested that we went somewhere nearby for lunch, I jumped at the chance to re-visit Wild & Wood.

October 2015: Wild & Wood closed at the start of July this year as the whole block that Wild & Wood was in is being redeveloped. The good news is that it re-opened at the end of August in a new location on London Wall! See what I found when I went to visit.

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Elixr

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A chemex of Elixr's own single-origin coffee is being lovingly prepared.Elixr is something of a legend in the fledging Philadelphia coffee scene. It’s been around for just three years and, as is often the way with such places, it’s already seeded other local coffee shops. Menagerie Coffee, for example, was set-up by ex-Elixr manager, April. It’s also a fairly small world since I ran into Willa (the barista who I met at Menagerie the previous evening) who works weekends at Elixr. Indeed, it was something of a disappointment not to find Willa working in all the coffee shops I visited while I was in Philadelphia!

Elixr offers the usual range of espresso-based drinks, the obligatory bulk-brew filter and hand-poured filter via Chemex. When it opened, Elixr used PT’s coffee, but now the coffee is roasted in-house by Elixr’s owner. While I was there, there were five single-origins on pour-over, with a house-blend and guest single-origin on espresso.

Elixr is another physically beautiful space in a city that’s full of such places. It’s a long, thin coffee shop of the type that I seemed to run into quite frequently on my trip. It was very busy while I was there, and, despite its size, seating was at a premium.

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Plenty Café, Rittenhouse

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The A-board outside Plenty in Rittenhouse, proudly displaying its coffee credentials with local roasters Rival Brothers and Square One CoffeeWe continue my mini-coffee tour of Philadelphia with Plenty Café. It seems harsh to call Plenty a chain, since there are only two of them, but there you go. I visited the second one, on Spruce Street, which has only been open since Thanksgiving the previous year. It’s in the area known as Rittenhouse, just south of the centre, around the corner from such luminaries as Elixr. The contrast between the bustle of Elixr and the relative, relaxed calm of Plenty was striking.

Plenty was introduced to me as a “sandwich joint” which, I feel, is understating its coffee credentials. With local Philadelphia roasters, Rival Brothers, providing the house blend, and guest roaster, Square One from Lancaster PA (not Lancaster, Lancashire, and not, as I first read it, London’s Square Mile!) providing the beans for the pour-over and guest espresso, it’s coffee credentials are pretty decent.

Add to that perhaps my favourite space in Philadelphia (although it had plenty of competition from the likes of Menagerie Coffee and Ox), a great atmosphere, amazing cakes and probably the best cup of coffee I had in Philadelphia and you have a clear winner! Ironically, the only things I didn’t try were the sandwiches…

March 2018: Plenty Café is now a chain of three, and exclusively uses Square One. You can also see what I made of the original Plenty Café on East Passyunk Avenue.

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Render Coffee

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The Render Coffee logo, from the sign outside. The words RENDER COFFEE above a line-drawing of an anvil.I think I’ve found a new favourite in Boston. Head a few blocks along Columbus Avenue past my favourite breakfast spot, Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe, and you’ll find Render Coffee, just before the junction with Massachusetts Avenue. Ironically, I found it from the other direction, walking south along Mass Ave from Pavement Coffeehouse on Boylston. Although only 10 minutes from Pavement, the contrast couldn’t have been sharper, going from the busy Pavement to the relatively laid-back calm of Render. Quiet, but not empty, it was a relaxed and relaxing place to spend the afternoon.

Like Pavement, Render serves Counter Culture as both espresso and pour-over, along with guest coffees (both from Gracenote Coffee during my visits). One of the things I really liked is there’s no bulk-brew filter coffee. Instead, Render only offers hand-pour. There’s also an excellent selection of food and cake.

Long and thin seems to be a theme for Boston coffee shops and Render is no different in this respect. Accessed by a short flight of steps up from Columbus Avenue, you can sit right at the front and watch the traffic go by, or better still, sit at the back where there’s an excellent fireplace and conservatory!

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Brewsmiths Coffee & Tea

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An espresso in a glass, steaming in the sunlight streaming through Brewsmith's window.Tucked in under a railway arch right beneath Birmingham’s Snow Hill Station, the first word that springs to mind when stepping into Brewsmiths is “cosy”, followed by “friendly”. If I was allowed the luxury of three words for a wider description, I’d go for “upmarket greasy spoon”. Perhaps a half-way house between greasy spoon and coffee shop would be more accurate (eight words).

Whatever the description, Brewsmiths is a lovely place, a neighbourhood coffee shop under a railway station. In that respect it’s similar to Coffee Affair, although that’s where the similarity ends. Although there’s a comprehensive coffee menu with piccolos, flat whites and ristrettos rubbing shoulders with more traditional espressos, lattes, cappuccinos and mochas, Brewsmiths doesn’t aspire to Coffee Affair’s level of coffee geekery. The food is also more down-to-earth, although, in common with Coffee Affair, it’s all produced on the premises.

Brewsmiths has been a feature of the Birmingham coffee scene for a while, but since Christmas Eve it’s had a new owner, Andy. I never visited it back in the day (I got close though, arriving at ten past three last summer only to discover Brewsmiths closes at three) but Andy tells me he’s not changed much.

March 2016: It looks like Brewsmiths has had to close for good.

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The Espresso Lounge

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The Espresso Lounge sign, promising "A Revolution For Coffee Lovers"The Espresso Lounge in Tring was the second (and sadly final) stop on my recent mini-road trip. Not very far from my first stop, Kings Langley’s Fred & Ginger Coffee, the Espresso Lounge is a very different beast, but with the same end result: an excellent place to stop for coffee.

Set in a lovely old building on the High Street, the Espresso Lounge takes a slightly more traditional approach to its coffee. Run by husband and wife team Aron (barista, front of house) and Clare (chef, kitchen) you are assured of a warm welcome and some wonderful food and cake (I did indulge this time!), all cooked in the kitchen at the back.

The espresso blend, along with a single-origin Kenyan Peaberry (for pour-overs) are roasted especially for The Espresso Lounge, although Aron confessed that he would like to get into roasting his own beans in due course. Indeed, I was impressed in equal measure by Aron’s knowledge of, and passion for, great coffee. A fan of the New York coffee scene, Aron cut his teeth as a barista on a coffee cart in lay-by on the near-by A41 before moving indoors to set up The Espresso Lounge.

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