Artisan, Ealing

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Brian Williams

Located on Ealing’s busy New Broadway, with a neat set of tables on the pavement outside, the Ealing branch of Artisan celebrated its first birthday just a couple of weeks ago. Joining the likes of the long-established Electric Coffee Company and fellow newcomers, Café Zee, Artisan is helping make Ealing a place worth visiting just for the coffee.

The third of four Artisans, it follows the original, which opened its doors less than four years ago Putney. Each of the Artisans is very much its own place. This one’s long, although not particularly thin (it’s wide enough for three rows of tables at the back), full of upcycled furniture, wooden floorboards, bare plaster and lights shrouded in paper-bag lampshades. Right at the back is the Artisan Coffee School (which will be the subject of its own Saturday Supplement in due course), which doubles as extra seating when there are no classes going on.

The coffee is from London’s Allpress, with the ubiquitous Redchurch blend on espresso. Filter coffee comes through the V60, with beans from London’s Nude Espresso and Berlin’s The Barn. Food is an equal part of the offering, with decent breakfast and lunch menus, plus lots of cake!

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Soulshine Café

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Brian Williams

Bridport is not necessarily where you would expect to find a great coffee shop. However, 15 miles west of Dorchester, Bridport boasts not one, but two excellent coffee shops: Box Office Coffee [now sadly closed] and the subject of today’s Coffee Spot, Soulshine Café, both of which opened in 2014.

Located on South Street (one of Bridport’s two main streets), at first there doesn’t seem much to Soulshine. The wide, bright shop front has three-person window-bars either side of the door and a handsome counter running in front of the back wall, but that’s about it.

If that’s all there was to it, Soulshine would still be a pretty good spot, but actually this is just a prelude of what’s to come. Head down a long, produce-lined corridor to the left of the counter and you’ll find yourself in Soulshine proper, a large, light-filled space that stretches out ahead of you. Even better, right at the back, the patio-doors look out onto a wonderful, secluded, sheltered courtyard.

Soulshine is built around three pillars of high-quality, locally-sourced organic food, juice and coffee. The latter comes from Bristol’s Extract (house-blend and decaf), with regularly-rotating guest roasters on the second espresso. There’s also an Aeropress option.

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Tamper Coffee, Sellers Wheel

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Brian Williams

For once, I’ve done a chain in the correct order, having first visited the original Tamper Coffee on Westfield Terrace in Sheffield before venturing down the following day to Sellers Wheel on Arundel Street for breakfast. The contrast between the two in terms of size and scope could hardly be greater; Westfield Terrace is a small, cosy, neighbourhood coffee shop, while Sellers Wheel is much larger, with a strong focus on food, although still retaining Westfield Terrace’s intimacy and emphasis on great coffee.

For those who’ve visited Ozone’s roastery/café in London will be familiar with the concept. Meanwhile if you’ve been to Caravan King’s Cross, there’s a certain similarity in look and feel, although Sellers Wheel is much smaller; you could probably fit four of it into Caravan (eight if you stacked them vertically as well).

In some ways, Sellers Wheel (like Caravan) is two-shops-in-one. You enter into a small area, best described as a coffee lounge, and, if you just want coffee, you could always stay here since it makes a great option by itself. Sellers Wheel proper, though, which is where all the food is, is at the back, through a doorway to the left of the counter.

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Marmadukes Café Deli

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Brian Williams

Marmadukes Café and Deli is tucked away opposite Sheffield’s Catholic Cathedral on Norfolk Row, a lovely, quiet street that makes sitting out in the sun almost compulsory. However, to do so would miss out on an even lovelier interior. Occupying all three floors of a rambling, old house, Marmadukes is a cosy, friendly spot that has something for everyone, each of its five distinct spaces offering something unique. Beware of the maze-like interior though; I went the wrong way at least three times!

The coffee’s pretty good too, with head-barista Alex determined to keep Marmadukes up there with the best in Sheffield and beyond. The mainstay is London’s Workshop, the Cult of Done seasonal espresso front-and-centre on Marmadukes’ new La Marzocco Linear PB. Recent investment in an EK-43 grinder has allowed Marmadukes’ guest roaster, which changes every month, to now be offered on both espresso and filter. During August, it’s Finchley’s Campbell & Syme. Before that it was local roaster, Worksop’s Sundlaug Coffee Co..

However, it’s not just the coffee. Marmadukes has always had excellent food, as good as anywhere in Sheffield, with dedicated breakfast, all-day brunch and lunch menus, plus a stupendous range of cakes, including the house-speciality, cheesecake.

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200 Degrees Coffee Shop

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Brian Williams

I came to Nottingham in 2013 for the Ashes Test Match at Trent Bridge. Back then, a search for good coffee in Nottingham drew a blank. Two years later, I returned, during which time Nottingham had reinvented itself. Leading the way, or so it seems to me, is 200 Degrees, first with its roastery, now with its awesome flagship award-winning café right in the city centre.

“Flagship” is a term that is often misused, but this is a real gem and could easily be a flagship for speciality coffee in Nottinghamshire and perhaps the East Midlands as a whole. Set in the gorgeous surroundings of the Old Flying Horse Inn, it reminds me of The Barista’s, Chester in setting, with its panelled wood and exposed brickwork in the long, low-ceilinged main room. You can also sit outside, where up-turned crates, masquerading as tables, flank either side of the door, watching the trams rumble by.

The coffee, naturally, is roasted in-house at the roastery down by the Trent. On espresso there’s house-blend, guest (blend or single-origin) and decaf, while one of two single-origins is on hand-pour (V60 or Aeropress). You can also buy all the beans to take home with you.

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Quarter Horse Coffee, Birmingham

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Brian Williams

Quarter Horse Coffee opened its Birmingham café/roastery in February 2015, having moved from its original home in Oxford (which is now Peleton Espresso). Located on Bristol Street, a few minutes’ walk south of the centre, it underwent a major remodelling during the summer of 2020, making the most of the enforced shut down due to COVID-19. This saw the roastery, which had been in an open area on the left, enclosed in its own room, while the café on the right expanded its seating, even though the actual space is slightly smaller. This post is all about the café, by the way, while the roastery has its own Meet The Roaster feature.

Bright and spacious, Quarter Horse has a simple, extremely effective décor, being predominantly white, which, along with high ceilings, an uncluttered layout and windows front and back, make it feel even brighter and more spacious than it is. The coffee is all roasted on-site, with the house-blend and a second option on espresso, plus a single-origin on pour-over through the Marco SP9 automated brewers. There’s an all-day light food menu and plenty of cakes, while from Wednesday to Sunday, a full brunch menu is available from 10:00 – 14:00.

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Leyas

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Brian Williams

I can see why fellow-blogger Matt (aka The Gladieater) likes Leyas so much. It’s a delightful spot on Camden High Street, within sight of the famous Mornington Crescent tube station. It has an interesting layout, with a split level. This could be a nightmare, but Leyas has used this to great effect: there’s a small group of tables on street level as you come in, then steps lead up to the counter and down to a lovely basement. It reminds me of a smaller, cosier version of the Boston Tea Party on Bristol’s Whiteladies Road.

Leyas regularly rotates its roasters, with a different option on espresso, pour-over (V60) and decaf. Sometimes they are all from the same roaster, and at other times it’s a different roaster for each. While I was there in November, Alchemy was doing the honours on espresso, Nude on pour-over and Square Mile on decaf. On my return in June it was Mission Coffee Works and now it’s the turn of Assembly.

However, Leyas isn’t just coffee. There’s an impressive selection of cakes, a massive range of sandwiches and salads, plus extensive breakfast and lunch menus, the food all made in the kitchen at the back.

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Notes, King’s Cross

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Brian Williams

Notes was always more than just a coffee shop, mixing coffee by day with wine and small plates of an evening, in surroundings that spoke of elegance. For a while, there was Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and various coffee barrows. Then, two years ago, along came a roastery and now, within the space of a year, four new stores, with a heavily over-subscribed foray into crowd-funding to fund further expansion (albeit at the expense of Covent Garden and all but one barrow).

King’s Cross/St Pancras, just north of King’s Cross, between Noble Espresso (now Craft Coffee) and Caravan, is the first of the new Notes that I’ve visited (I’ve since between to both the Canary Wharf and Crossrail Place locations). Smaller (and hence more intimate) than the original Notes, you can sit downstairs, opposite the counter, or upstairs in the cosy mezzanine. Alternatively, try the great selection of outdoor seating on the secluded Pancras Square.

With coffee roasted at the nearby Notes Roastery, there’s a single-origin (which changes every couple of months) and decaf on espresso. Another single-origin is on filter, available either as a V60 or bulk-brew. This changes every few days, Notes rotating through its selection of single-origins as each bag runs out.

July 2020: Notes has now reopened, although the upstairs seating is currently closed due to COVID-19. See what I made of it when I visited in August.

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Beany Green, Regent’s Place

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Brian Williams

I began naming the various Beany Greens by using the train station that they are closest to. So this, the fourth of the Beany Greens (if you count Daisy Green as the first) in the Regent’s Place development, started life on the Coffee Spot as the Euston Beany Green to go with Paddington (Sheldon Square/Little Venice), Liverpool Street (Broadgate Circle) and South Bank/Festival Hall (midway between Waterloo and Charing Cross).

However, in order to avoid confusion with the kiosk at Euston Station, I’ve decided to call it the Regent’s Place Beany Green. Regent’s Place itself is a couple of streets west of Euston. Set back a little from the busy Euston Road, Beany Green is on the pedestrianised Brock Street, connecting Regent’s Square to Hampstead Road to the east. It’s also right on top of Warren Street tube station and around the corner from Euston Square (which is between it and Euston Station).

The smallest of the permanent Beanies, its trade (based on my visits) is predominantly takeaway. In case you want to stay, it has a neat window bar, a few tables and a nice, sheltered, shady outdoor seating area on the pedestrianised street-front. There’s the same Beany Green goodness, with innovative, healthy food offerings and excellent coffee from The Roasting Party, although space limitations mean it’s espresso-based only.

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Look Mum No Hands! Mare Street

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Brian Williams

Slowly but surely, London Fields, beyond trendy Shoreditch on the commuter lines out of Liverpool Street, is becoming a coffee destination. Long-time home to stalwarts Climpson and Sons on Broadway Market, and more recently, with the roastery under the railway arches, it’s been joined in recent years by Terrone, at Netil Market, and the latest arrival, the well-regarded Silhouette. It’s also where London coffee-and-cycling giants, Look Mum No Hands!, chose to open its second permanent branch on Mare Street.

For those familiar with the original Look Mum No Hands! on Old Street or the South Bank Pop-up (back again for another summer), the branch on Mare Street will hold no surprises, serving up the same winning menu of Square Mile coffee, craft beer, substantial food (when the kitchen’s not closed!) and bikes. There are fewer bikes than at Old Street, the emphasis here slightly more on the coffee, beer and food. There’s also less outside seating, the selection limited to a little bench outside the side door and a pair of picnic tables on the broad pavement out front. However, to compensate for these minor shortcomings, the interior’s even bigger than the substantial Old Street and the pace more relaxed.

January 2016: Look Mum No Hands! has had to close as the landlord has redeveloped the building.

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Category Archives: Breakfast

Artisan, Ealing

Soulshine Café

Tamper Coffee, Sellers Wheel

Marmadukes Café Deli

200 Degrees Coffee Shop

Quarter Horse Coffee, Birmingham

Leyas

Notes, King’s Cross

Beany Green, Regent’s Place

Look Mum No Hands! Mare Street