Category Archives: Breakfast

Coffee Spots serving hot food for breakfast

Boston Tea Party, Ringwood

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The Boston Tea Party in Ringwood, Hampshire, housed in an old grain warehouse.It’s touch-and-go whether the Boston Tea Party at Ringwood is the closest to my home, or whether that honour goes to the Salisbury branch. In many ways it’s a typical Boston Tea Party, having taken another iconic building (in this case, an old granary from the 1800s) and turned it into a first class coffee shop, providing good quality food, including an outstanding all-day breakfast menu, and Extract Coffee to the small Hampshire market town of Ringwood. Better still, it is literally just off the A31, so it makes an excellent stop if you are travelling that way.

Like many a branch of the Boston Tea Party, Ringwood has plenty of outside seating. However, with the exception of the original on Park Street and the Honiton branch (both of which have secluded gardens at the back) this may have the best, with multiple tables neatly arranged outside in the pedestrianised Furlong Centre. Inside, the Tea Party spreads over three floors, with the top floor (which used to be the hayloft) having only been opened last year (Ringwood itself opened in 2012). There’s the usual range of Boston Tea Party seating, including comfortable chairs, long sofa benches and more traditional tables.

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Jika Jika, Euston Square

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A flat white in the sun, seen from directly above, at Jika Jika on Euston Square.Jika Jika started life in Bath about five years ago. It’s recently moved premises there, downsizing to a smaller outlet by the station. About a year ago it also opened a second branch. In London. As you do.

Close enough to Euston station to be worth visiting if you’re en route to catch a train, it’s just around the corner from the northern exit of Euston Square tube station (turn right, away from Euston itself, and ignore the branch of Costa). It’s somewhere I kept going past, thinking, “Is that the same Jika Jika as in Bath?” and “I must go in there one day”. So, eventually, I did. Twice.

There’s not a lot to Jika Jika, which occupies a corner of the Euston Square hotel (which, ironically, also houses the aforementioned Costa). However, it packs a lot in, including decent breakfast and lunch offerings. There’s a solid espresso menu, based around a bespoke espresso blend (plus decaf) from Cornwall’s Origin, using a two-group La Marzocco which dominates the counter at the back of the small space. If you have time to linger, the décor is interesting, including plenty of pictures and amusing coffee-related quotations.

January 2017: Jika Jika is now closed. As far as I know, the branch in Bath has also closed.

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Notes, Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf

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A lovely flat white in a classic white cup, complete with impressive latte-art at Notes at Crossrail Place.For the longest time, Canary Wharf, and the area around it, was a desert when it came to quality coffee. Then along came Taylor Street Baristas, with a second branch in nearby South Quay (both now gone). Also expanding east is Notes, the coffee-and-wine outfit which now roasts its own coffee and boasts five outlets, including King’s Cross, Moorgate and a branch in Canary Wharf tube station.

The latest Notes is also at Canary Wharf, this time in Crossrail Place, the new station for the Crossrail line. It doubles as a shopping centre, which opened in May 2015, despite Crossrail itself being several years from completion. Notes is on the ground floor and, in an area where businesses tend to keep to office hours and shut at the weekends, it refreshingly stays open late into the evening, as well as at weekends, serving Notes’ familiar mix of speciality coffee, wine, craft beer and small plates.

The newer Notes have outstanding designs and Crossrail Place is no exception. Even though it lacks the mezzanine level of King’s Cross, Crossrail Place might well be my favourite, squeezing itself into a weird space with some aplomb. Needless to say, the coffee is very good as well!

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G!RO Cycles

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Giro Cycles won the 2015 "Best Coffee Shop for Cyclists" at this year's 2015 UK Coffee Stop Awards.It’s ironic that I travel around the country, seeking out great coffee shops, but I can’t manage to visit one that’s practically on my doorstep. However, I have finally rectified this oversight with a long overdue visit to the award-winning Giro (or G!RO Cycles, to use its full name) in Esher.

Giro follows that by now well-established tradition of combining coffee and cycling, pioneered by the likes of Look Mum No Hands! and Zappi’s Bike Café. However, in the case of Giro, it feels to me more focused on the coffee than the cycles. There’s no workshop, for example, and the cycling gear is to be found at the back of the shop. Make no mistake though; Giro is as passionate about its cycling as it is about its coffee and regularly attracts crowds (swarms?) of cyclists, especially on its weekend organised cycle rides. There are also regular evening events.

Talking of coffee, Giro uses Beanberry Coffee, roasted in nearby Woking. Beanberry specialises in roasting organic coffee, with a number of single-origins and a bespoke espresso blend for Giro, while forging close links with the coffee farmers. Giro itself has four filter options (all V60) to go with the espresso.

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Lemana Café Update

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A Has Bean coffee sack hanging from the counter at Lemana Coffee & Kitchen.Lemana, in Lymington, just outside the New Forest, has been a favourite of mine since my first visit in November 2013. A friendly, family-run, community-based café in a small town, it had excellent food and outstanding cakes, plus one of the warmest welcomes you’ll find. The only thing I didn’t rave about was the coffee.

However, when I heard on twitter that Lemana had started serving coffee from Staffordshire legends, Has Bean, my ears perked up. A return visit was quickly pencilled in as part of my annual trip to Naish, just along the coast from Lymington (which, contrary to my initial belief, is in Hampshire, not Dorset).

The switch to Has Bean is the most obvious of the changes, which have included taking a range of loose-leaf tea from Dorchester’s Gilded Teapot. Fortunately the warm welcome, excellent food and outstanding cakes remain, while other changes have been more subtle.

November 2018: since I wrote this update, Lemana has changed hands and now uses local roaster, Coffee Monger’s Roasting Company. To see what else has changed, see my latest Coffee Spot Update.

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Farm Girl Café

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Thumbnail - Farm Girl Cafe (DSC_3484t)Down an interesting passageway, just off London’s Portobello Road, you’ll find a small, high-walled courtyard and, tucked away on the left-hand side, the wonderful Farm Girl Café. Occupying an amazing space, Farm Girl Café is a real delight. You can sit outside in the courtyard, where the only downside is that, due to the high walls, it doesn’t get the sun. While this means it can be wonderfully cool and shady on the occasional day that the summer decides to turn up, it can also be decidedly chilly. That said, I sat outside on my second visit in November and was fine.

Alternatively, sit inside, either in the main body of the café, or, if there’s a crowd of you, upstairs on the delightful mezzanine above the kitchen at the long communal table. The only downside of the interior is that it can get a bit loud, the beautifully-tiled walls acting as something of an echo chamber.

Farm Girl serves a substantial all-day breakfast menu, joined by a lunch menu from 11 o’clock. The coffee’s from old friends, The Roasting Party, using the standard Party Blend, decaf on the second grinder. Best of all, Farm Girl offers full table service.

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McCune Smith

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The words McCUNE SMITH GLASGOW in black typeface on white.Once upon a time, speciality coffee in Glasgow was generally a West End thing, but in the last couple of years, that’s changed, with pioneers such as the Riverhill Coffee Bar, Laboratorio Espresso and today’s Coffee Spot, McCune Smith, moving into the city centre and its immediate surroundings.

A little way east of the centre of Glasgow, you’ll find McCune Smith at the top (west) end of Duke Street, right on the edge of the University of Strathclyde, in an area that feels like it might have the estate agent tag of “up-and-coming”. In the words of its owner, Dan, it’s a sandwich bar which caught the coffee bug, teaming up with Glasgow’s very own Dear Green Coffee to turn itself into a lovely little spot.

In keeping with many places in Glasgow, McCune Smith marries excellent coffee with a very strong food offering (not surprising, given its sandwich-bar origins). However, with a nod to Glasgow’s Enlightenment history, McCune Smith is named after Dr James McCune Smith, the black intellectual and abolitionist who became the first African American in the world to hold a medical degree when he graduated from Glasgow’s Old College in 1837.

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Avenue Coffee, Great Western Road

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Avenue Coffee on the corner of Glasgow's Great Western Avenue and Barrington Drive.While in Glasgow for Caffeine Magazine in April 2014, I visited Avenue Coffee on the Great Western Road, where I met a young barista named Katelyn. Back then it had recently opened, was known as Avenue G, and, upstairs on the mezzanine level, a coffee roaster was being installed: Avenue G was about to start roasting under the name “Avenue Coffee”.

Realising that anything I wrote would be out-of-date before I even published it, I decided to wait until I’d had a chance to visit the roastery before writing up the Great Western Road branch. Fast-forward 18 months, the young barista had turned head-roaster, and I was finally able to accept Katelyn’s long-standing invitation to visit.  You can see what I made of the Avenue Coffee Roasting Company in the Meet the Roaster series; today I’m focusing on the coffee shop part of the operation.

Sitting on the corner of Barrington Drive, Avenue Coffee a lovely, sunlit spot, decked out in wood, brick and bare stone. Best described as the speciality coffee wing of Avenue G, it showcases the roastery’s output (plus guest roasters) with two options on espresso and three on filter, prepared through any of six brew methods.

May 2018: Avenue Coffee is no more, with both the roastery and the coffee shop having recently closed. The original Avenue G has also undergone some changes and is now known as Turadh.

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Dovecot Café by Stag Espresso

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A flat white in a classic white cup seen from directly above with a multi-leaf fern motif in the latte art.Dovecot Café, by Stag Espresso, is the in-house café of the Dovecot Contemporary Art Gallery and Tapestry Studio on Edinburgh’s Infirmary Street. It’s been around since 2011, making it an established player Edinburgh’s speciality coffee scene. Despite this, it seems to go under the radar, although I’ve heard consistently good things about it and its occasional pop-ups.

Like 6/8 Kafé’s latest venture inside Birmingham’s Millennium Point, this is speciality coffee in a mainstream setting and, as such, can only be applauded. If only all galleries/museums served coffee to this high standard. Oh well, we can dream.

Stag Espresso uses Lancaster’s J Atkinson & Co., which, as far as I know, is the only place in Edinburgh where you can get it. There’s no pour-over, just a solid espresso-based menu using Atkinson’s Archetype espresso blend, backed up with a wide range of loose-leaf tea from Edinburgh’s Anteaques, a good range of soft drinks and an outstanding cake selection.

Judging by the crowd that was there during my visit (hardly a table was unoccupied), it also does a roaring lunchtime trade, offering sandwiches and soup as the mainstays. Best of all, there’s that rarest of things in speciality coffee, full table service.

December 2015: Richard, of Stag Espresso, has sold up and moved on, with new ownership (Leo’s Beanery) taking over the cafe in the new year…

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Jonestown Coffee

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An espresso in a glass, seen from directly above. The coffee is a single-origin Papua New Guinea bean, served in Jonestown Coffee, Bethnal Green Road.Jonestown Coffee, on London’s Bethnal Green Road, is putting the “lounge” back into “coffee lounge” with an interior that is a throwback to the early years of the millennium, if not the late 90s. That’s not a criticism, by the way; it’s quite lovely inside, very laidback and chilled, which makes a change from edgy hipster places or the “we just threw this place together last night” look. Giant sofas abound, while the décor is dominated by bold, primary colours and strong, geometric shapes, which, after prolonged exposure, can be a bit of an assault on the senses. Unless you sit at one of the two window-bars, of course. Or outside.

When it comes to the coffee part of “coffee lounge”, Jonestown has also gone its own way. You won’t find multiple options on espresso or fancy pour-overs, just the house-espresso, which also goes through the bulk-brewer. What is interesting is the coffee itself, a single-origin from Papua New Guinea, bespoke-roasted for Jonestown by a local roaster. A rare beast indeed, it’s worth a visit just to try it.

There’s also a decent range of sandwiches, as well as soup and salads, backed up with a comprehensive selection of cake.

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