Mother’s Milk Update

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Brian Williams

The original Mother’s Milk was on Little Portland Street, one of a growing number of speciality coffee shops in Fitzrovia, an area once the sole preserve of Aussie legends, Kaffeine. Mother’s Milk joined the likes of Attendant and since opening, Workshop, Curators Coffee Gallery and several others have moved in. But now Mother’s Milk has moved… all the way to Little Portland Street! That’s right, Mother’s Milk has upped sticks and headed east, all the way across Great Portland Street, shifting from No 12 to the far more excitingly-named No 22-23.

Many of the Mother’s Milk hallmarks remain from the original: Will and James are still behind the counter, while the delightful Victoria Arduino lever espresso machine is still on it, the coffee’s still from Munich’s JB Kaffee and it’s still frustratingly hard to find unless you know where it is!

The original Mother’s Milk at least had windows onto the street, but was confusingly called Rosalind’s Kitchen (which is why I walked past three times one my first visit). The new premises are a great improvement, but are in the back of a communications agency called Exposure, the only real clue to Mother’s Milk being the A-board outside.

January 2016: Bad news. Mother’s Milk has announced its closure with immediate effect.

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Silhouette

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Brian Williams

Silhouette joined a growing number of speciality coffee shops and roasters in the Hackney area, opening in February last year. Located just off Mare Street (close to the now-closed and sadly missed Look Mum No Hands!) it’s close to the likes of Climpson and Sons and others at London Fields (with the roastery just around the corner) and Terrone at Netil Market.

Silhouette itself is a delightful little spot, south-facing and on a corner, so it catches the sun, both from the generous windows at the front, as well as from the equally-generous windows along the west-facing side. Inside, the focus is on the coffee, where Silhouette offers both espresso and pour-over (using the Kalita Wave), filling its hoppers with whatever takes the fancy of owners Lee and Syirin (Syirin had just returned from a trip to Berlin, so the shelves held a smattering of bags from the likes of Five Elephant and Concierge (a new one on me).

Silhouette also does loose leaf tea, hot chocolate, cold-pressed juices and smoothies. There’s a menu heavy on toast/bagels, things on toast/bagels and salads. With a nod to Syirin’s Malaysian heritage, Silhouette also runs monthly Malaysian Supper Clubs on a Saturday evening. Continue reading →

Slipstream

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Brian Williams

I went to Washington DC with no great coffee expectations, but then found the amazing Peregrine Espresso, a lovely little coffee shop that would grace any city. That, honestly, would have sent me home happy, but just six blocks further along 14^th Street is the amazing Slipstream.

It’s not just that the coffee here, from Michigan’s Madcap, is excellent (which it is). Slipstream is also, by speciality coffee shop standards, huge. With a good range of loose-leaf tea. And with decent breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, all the food being prepared on-site in the kitchen behind the counter. And, as befits a place that’s open well into the night, there are cocktails from a fully-stocked bar.

However, I’d been drawn by the coffee, which Slipstream amusingly (and accurately) splits into “Quick Coffee” (espresso and bulk brew) and “Worth the Wait”, hand-filtered single-origins using the Modbar. There’s a choice of four of these, plus decaf, and they change on a weekly basis. They’re also all available as espresso, where they’re joined by the house-blend, Madcap’s Third Coast. If that wasn’t enough, there’s another blend, Six-One-Six, on bulk-brew filter, plus a rotating seasonal coffee.

And the service was exceptional: coffee-heaven in an amazing setting.

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Notes, Canary Wharf

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Brian Williams

It took a while, but speciality coffee has reached Canary Wharf, and, having got here, it’s not going away. There are now two branches of both Taylor Street Baristas (Canary Wharf and South Quay) and coffee shop/roaster, Notes. Although I’ve already written about Notes in Crossrail Place, today’s Coffee Spot, on the concourse of Canary Wharf tube station, was the first I came across when, back in September, I innocently wandered through the ticket barriers and thought “ooh, look, a Notes”.

Sadly I only had my phone, which wasn’t up to adequately photographing somewhere which is entirely underground. It was only last week that I was able to return, proper camera in hand, at a time when there weren’t customers queuing out of the door!

Although small (and with no seats), the Canary Wharf Notes thinks it’s just as big and important as its much larger siblings. While there’s no wine or beer, there are impressive breakfast and lunch menus, a good selection of cake and coffee-kit/beans for sale. The coffee’s what it’s all about though: serving only single-origins, all roasted in-house, there’s espresso plus bulk-brew, and, surprisingly, Canary Wharf consistently serves the best coffee that I’ve had at Notes.

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Peregrine Espresso, 14th Street

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Brian Williams

I visited Washington DC in March this year with no great expectations about the coffee. I’d heard of some good places, but I really wasn’t expecting them to be THIS good! Peregrine Espresso, on 14^th Street in the northwest quarter, was my second stop of a day which started at Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar and was to end at Slipstream. A tiny place from the outside, like any good TARDIS, Peregrine’s bigger on the inside, but still pretty small, with seating limited to a window bench and some small tables and bar stools along the left-hand wall.

The coffee, however, is awesome, Peregrine serving me perhaps the best espresso and filter I’d had on my entire trip. Since this had included New York and Philadelphia, as well as DC, there was some pretty serious competition! I also had a cinnamon bun with a hat on, which pretty much made my day. Does it get any better than this?

The coffee, by the way, is from Counter Culture, with Peregrine offering a number of single-origins on pour-over, one of which is also available as batch brew from 8 to 11 each morning. Another, along with the decaf, is also available as espresso.

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200 Degrees Coffee Roasters

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Brian Williams

Before there was ever 200 Degrees, the award-winning coffee shop in the centre of Nottingham, there was 200 Degrees Coffee Roasters, who first brought my attention to Nottingham as somewhere where you could get decent coffee.

200 Degrees grew out of Belle and Jerome, a well-known coffee shop in West Bridgford, just down from Trent Bridge cricket ground, and a desire of the owners, Rob and Tom, to roast their own coffee. The catalyst was third partner, Tim, who brought a passion for roasting, having caught the coffee-bug in New Zealand.

Called 200 Degrees after the temperature green beans are roasted at, 200 Degrees grew from fairly humble beginnings to become what is now a fairly major player in Nottingham’s growing speciality coffee scene. As well as supplying its own coffee shop, 200 Degrees also supplies a number of other local shops, roasting a couple of espresso blends, a filter blend and three or four single-origin filters.

As well as supplying coffee, plus the necessary kit to go with it, 200 Degrees is also expanding into training, both for its wholesale customers and for the general consumer, as seen in its training room at the 200 Degrees Coffee Shop.

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The Pudding Pantry

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Brian Williams

Nottingham’s speciality coffee scene is taking off, with options ranging all the way from 200 Degrees Coffee Shop to Pelham Street’s Wired Café Bar. Slipping effortlessly into the gap between great coffee and comfort food, is The Pudding Pantry, which opened in April 2014 on Trinity Square.

Long and thin, The Pudding Pantry offers a full table service. You have the choice of sitting inside, where the dedicated seating area is separated from the counter by a small flight of stairs, or outside, in a large, fenced-off area on the pedestrianised street.

If I said that you don’t come to The Pudding Pantry for the coffee, that’s not knocking the coffee, which is from Kiwi imports, Ozone. Rather, it’s just that there’s so much else on offer that it would be silly just to come here for the coffee! As the name suggests, The Pudding Pantry is strong on sweet things, with a particularly good line of breakfasts and brunches, including one of my favourites, American-style pancakes. In that respect, it reminds me of the likes of The Bristolian and Glutton & Glee.

Currently, it’s espresso-only, but there’s a desire to add pour-over to the menu, so watch this space!

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Wired Café Bar

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Brian Williams

In the two years since I last visited Nottingham, its coffee scene has exploded, with various spots opening up. Representing the hipster end of the market is Pelham Street’s Wired Café Bar, with its scaffolding-pole furniture, exposed air-conditioning ducts and quirky manner (its website, for example, proudly proclaims, “we’ve got a La Marzocco… and we’re not afraid to use it!”). There’s a basement too!

Oh, and it’s got some cracking coffee: Allpress’s Redchurch blend and decaf on espresso, two single-origins guests on Chemex. These rotate as-and-when, with Wired trying to have at least one from local start-up, Outpost Coffee Roasters. The likes of Allpress and Workshop also make regular appearances. Wired fulfils the “bar” side of the name with a small range of bottled beer and wine, although these are very much in the background, the focus firmly on the coffee.

Wired also has a good cake selection and an impressive food offering, particularly given that it’s all prepared in a tiny kitchen behind the counter. There’s typical British breakfast fare: eggs, sausage and bacon, all on a variety of toast and muffins, which can also be had separately, while lunch consists mostly of sandwiches, with one or two specials.

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Blue Bottle Coffee, Chelsea

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Brian Williams

Near the southern end of New York City’s wonderful High Line and opposite Chelsea Market, this was famed Californian roasters, Blue Bottle Coffee’s first Manhattan coffee shop. However, despite its proximity to the High Line, this shouldn’t be confused with Blue Bottle’s High Line Café, which is just a block away on the High Line itself (it also has seasonal opening hours; being a partly outdoor location, it’s currently closed, reopening in April 2016).

Back to the Chelsea branch, which isn’t far from fellow-roasters Intelligentsia and its coffee shop in the High Line Hotel. However, while that’s a very upmarket setting, Blue Bottle, situated in what was the loading dock of the Milk Building, is much more down-to-earth. Split over two levels with minimal seating, it still manages an impressive range of filter coffee to go with the usual espresso-based menu.

You can sit downstairs at one of two window bars, or outside on the pavement on one of two matching benches. You can also sit upstairs, where there’s a second counter, unless it’s being used for training courses (usually Saturday afternoons). This also used to host the famous Blue Bottle syphon bar from 11 until 2 on the weekends, but sadly this is no more.

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Intelligentsia, High Line Hotel

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Brian Williams

Intelligentsia, the Chicago-based coffee roaster, with cafés in Chicago (5), Los Angeles (4), Boston (2), Austin (1) and New York (1), has a place close to my heart. I visited the downtown branch in the Monadnock building on my first trip to Chicago in 2003, long before the Coffee Spot came to be. I’ve been a regular visitor there ever since (if visiting each time I’ve been to Chicago counts as regular!) and I’ve enjoyed Intelligentsia’s coffee elsewhere (for example, Gasoline Alley). Naturally, I jumped at the chance to actual visit Intelligentsia proper in New York.

Located in the lobby of the High Line Hotel, just across 10^th Avenue from the High Line itself (and across the road from Underline Coffee), it’s one of the most sumptuous coffee-shop locations I’ve seen, giving Stumptown on West 8th Street a run for its money. As well as the permanent zinc-topped coffee counter in the lobby, a refurbished 1963 Citroën coffee truck sits out front in the hotel grounds for those who don’t want to wander inside.

The Citroën serves a limited range of espresso and pour-over coffee. Inside, there’s a choice of the famous Black Cat seasonal espresso blend, plus a single-origin espresso, another single origin on pour-over (Chemex or V60) and decaf.

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Category Archives: Coffee Spot

Mother’s Milk Update

Silhouette

Slipstream

Notes, Canary Wharf

Peregrine Espresso, 14th Street

200 Degrees Coffee Roasters

The Pudding Pantry

Wired Café Bar

Blue Bottle Coffee, Chelsea

Intelligentsia, High Line Hotel