Category Archives: Dinner

Coffee Spots serving hot food for dinner

Caravan King’s Cross

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The Caravan King's Cross Sign: "Caravan King's Cross" in black letters on a white backgroundSince I’m now officially London’s second best coffee blogger (behind Daniel of Cups of London Coffee), I thought I ought to blog about somewhere in London for a change… So, I present Monday’s Coffee Spot, Caravan’s roastery and second outlet, its wonderful space just north of King’s Cross station.

I popped into Caravan one Friday morning before work to pick up the new Coffee Spot Espresso Cup. However, while I was there I realised that the place was long overdue a write-up for the Coffee Spot, and thus today’s Coffee Spot was born…

A roastery, coffee bar and restaurant, Caravan, in its cavernous space in an old grain warehouse next to Regent’s Canal just north of King’s Cross, is many things to many people. To me, it’s a great place to sit inside at the counter at the back, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with the baristas, or, on a summer’s evening, sitting outside with a carafe of one of Caravan’s many fine single-origins. As well as the single-origin pour-overs, I have always liked Caravan’s Market espresso-blend and generally keep an eye out for its coffee wherever I go.

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Angelina, rue de Rivoli

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The Mont Blanc from AngelinaAngelina is something of a Paris institution, a grand Salon du Thé which exudes class, even more so than the venerable Café de Flore. From its shop on the rue de Rivoli, on the north edge of the Tuileries Gardens, it’s been serving the folk of Paris (and its fair share of visitors too: judging by the accents, faces and amount of English being spoken, Angelina is a major tourist draw) with exquisite cakes, artery-clogging hot chocolate and fine coffee since 1903.

While you might go to Café de Flore or its neighbour, Les Deux Magots, for the coffee, the people watching or the general ambience, with Angelina, you are definitely paying for the elegant surroundings and the (quite possibly literally) to-die-for patisserie such as the legendary Mont Blanc or the signature hot chocolate, l’Africain.

If you can’t get to the rue de Rivoli (or can’t get in!) there are other branches around Paris (plus one in Lyon and nine in Japan!). Alternatively, rue de Rivoli has a takeaway counter (useful for the budget-conscious). I’ve only tried the branch in the Louvre, which, while serving the same excellent fare, doesn’t quite have the same class as the rue de Rivoli original.

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Notes, Trafalgar Square

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Filter Coffee from Notes, served in a silver coffee pot, plus a muffin.Notes is one of those places that I have a love-hate relationship with. In theory, I really ought to love Notes. Unlike many modern coffee shops, Notes is decidedly upmarket. As much wine bar as café, with food to boot, the Trafalgar Square branch (although these comments applied equally to the nearby Covent Garden Notes, which is now closed) exudes quality. It has the setting and a certain elegance that would normally have me gushing with praise.

So, why do I sometimes find myself fidgety and ill-at-ease when I’m in Notes? Well, it’s not the coffee, which is excellent, nor is it the decor, which is wonderful. It is, in fact, the noise. Notes can be downright loud at times and sometimes, for me, loud is fine. And sometimes it’s not. I’m very binary like that, and when something crosses that line, it’s time to leave.

Which is a shame, since if I pick my moments, I find that I really like Notes. I like the coffee, there’s food all through the day, it’s open late into the evenings, the list goes on. The only thing that’s missing is Wifi (long since rectified, by the way).

So, if you can stand the (sometimes) noisy surroundings, I present Notes, Trafalgar Square.

July 2020: Notes has reopened, offering sit-in and takeaway services. You can see what I made of it when I visited.

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South End Buttery

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My cup of coffee surveys the bar at the back of the South End ButteryBoston’s South End Buttery is an excellent bakery/café that, until this visit, I had tabbed exclusively as a breakfast spot. Its breakfast offerings aren’t as extensive as some other establishments; mostly egg sandwiches on biscuit (American, not British) or bagel, with hot oatmeal as an alternative. I usually opt for the egg sandwich on a biscuit which never fails to satisfy while leaving space for lunch and dinner later in the day!

If you come for lunch there’s the usual range of sandwiches prepared while you wait and some tasty pastries to tempt you throughout the day. The South End Buttery changes a little in the evenings and at the weekends. Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 to 15:00, while the bar (see below) turns into restaurant from 17:30 onwards, staying open until 22:00 (23:00 Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays).

Since I’ve only ever been there on weekday mornings I can’t really comment on the merits or otherwise of it as a dinner/brunch spot. One day I’ll visit on the weekend and let you know!

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Toi Moi & Café

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Toi, Moi & Cafe | Cafe TorrefacteurToi Moi & Café (“You, me and coffee” for those who don’t speak French) is a micro-roaster with its own café, located conveniently just around the corner from my friend Adam’s apartment, where I was staying in Montréal. It’s the last of the Coffee Spots from the visit I made to Montréal back in March and rounds off an excellent visit. I came to Montréal with no expectations and left having found a wonderful coffee scene, with a wide variety of places.

Toi Moi & Café doesn’t fit the bill of the third-wave coffee shop: as well as serving coffee, which it roasts itself, it’s also an excellent breakfast, lunch and dinner spot in a residential part of Montréal. And it has lots of cake. In short, it does pretty much everything, and, being around the corner from Adam’s, I found myself a fairly regular visitor, heading there for both breakfast and lunch, as well as coffee and cake!

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Résonance!

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A fine vegan cortado from Résonance, the milk being a blend of almond and coconutOne of the great things about my (now not so) recent trip to Montréal is the variety of the places that I visited. They all serve excellent coffee, but that’s about all they have in common. Take Résonance, another of the recommendations I got from Marie-Ève of Pikolo Espresso Bar. Down in a basement, it’s in what I’d call an “interesting” part of Avenue du Parc (about 12 blocks up from Pikolo). Café by day, jazz bar by night, it serves a full range of vegan food, one of the few coffee spots in Montréal not to focus exclusively on coffee.

Résonance, supplied by Toronto-based Pilot Coffee Roasters, offers as wide a variety of coffee as any place I’d been on my trip. Along with the usual espresso-based drinks, pour-over and cafetiere coffee was also on offer, plus decaf options (essential, I would have thought, for somewhere that says open until midnight!). It was also one of the more spacious coffee spots I’d visited, roughly the same size as Café Olimpico but with a very different atmosphere, which changed as the evening wore on, the focus subtly shifting from coffee to jazz.

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Look Mum No Hands South Bank Pop-up

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An espresso in one of the lovely Look Mum No Hands mugs. Sadly if you want one of these for real, you'll need to go to the Old Street store, not the pop-up on the South Bank.In another new venture for the Saturday Supplement, I present the first ever Saturday Short. Saturday Shorts are Coffee Spots in their own right, but for which I can’t justify a full write-up.

This first Saturday Short comes courtesy of Look Mum No Hands!, something of a legend on the London coffee scene, if only for its interesting name (it’s up there with Bristol’s Didn’t You Do Well in those stakes). I’ve long wanted to try it out, but have never had the time/reason/excuse.

So, imagine my surprise and delight when, on a whim, I decided to walk across the Hungerford Bridge (which connects Waterloo and Charing Cross Stations) on the Parliament rather than the St Paul’s side.  Cutting across to the other side of the bridge I spotted an interesting-looking coffee stall nestling under the bridge itself… And the rest, as they say, is history…

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Café de Flore

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Classic Cafe de Flore cup, with green writing on white china, from 2009.Café de Flore is a grand café in the old style, which, together with near neighbour Les Deux Magots, is a fixture of Paris’ Left Bank. Situated on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Café de Flore dates back to 1885 and provides a taste of café life from early to mid-20th Century Paris. Popular with tourists and locals alike, it is, for me, part of something quintessentially Parisian, the stereo-typical grand café par excellence. Fortunately for me, Café de Flore actually lives up to my (potentially exaggerated) expectations.

The coffee is good and there’s a range of food from breakfast through lunch to dinner, along with a range of pastries. If coffee’s not your thing, there’s tea, hot chocolate, soft drinks and a very impressive array of drinks from the bar, including a whole page on the menu dedicated to champagne (this is, after all, France). The only potential downside is the price: for a city with a reputation for being on the expensive side, expect to pay twice as much in Café de Flore as you would elsewhere in Paris. Of course, you’re paying for the experience and that little touch of class, which, for me, is well worth it!

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Foxcroft & Ginger

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Foxcroft & Ginger's rhubarb and custard muffin, with a slice removed to reveal the liquid custard in the centre.What’s there not to like about Foxcroft & Ginger? I was introduced to it by a friend on Twitter and, although it took me a little while, it’s now become a firm favourite. The storefront, on Berwick Street in Soho, is, I confess, one I could easily walk past (and it’s not often that my café radar lets me down) and I find the upstairs a little chaotic. However, downstairs in the basement is the real deal.

Regular readers might not know about my fondness for basements, largely because there aren’t that many cafés with decent basements. It can best be described as “unfinished”, with bare walls and exposed power conduits and air conditioning ducts. It’s “L” shaped with a collection of oddly-shaped tables around the walls. In fact, nothing much matches in Foxcroft & Ginger, which is one of its many charms.

The coffee, as one might expect, is very good, with espresso-based drinks supplemented by V60, cafetiere and Aeropress options and with beans from Has Bean and Caravan. However, best of all are the cakes, and, specifically, the muffins, which might be the best in the whole wide world, all freshly baked on site.

September 2016: I’ve heard on the grapevine that Foxcroft & Ginger’s Soho branch has closed, although there’s no official word as to why… Very sad news.

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The Bristolian

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The Bristolian Cafe on Picton Street, offering a warm welcome on a rainy December afternoonIf you know Stokes Croft in Bristol, then you’ll know that The Bristolian was a legend, supplier of fine breakfasts in the best greasy spoon tradition. What you might not know is that, after a short break over the summer (which felt much longer), the Bristolian is back, under new ownership, and it’s better than ever.

The new owners, Anna, Oliver and James, have pulled off an impressive trick in keeping the best of the old Bristolian and building on it. Now, as well as the legendary breakfasts, the Bristolian offers top-notch coffee, lovely cakes, and tapas. No, I wouldn’t have thought of doing tapas either, but what do I know? They’ve also spruced up the interior, bringing out the best in what was already a lovely space, and hired some excellent staff , who make it feel as if the whole place is smiling at you.

The result is the return of an old favourite coupled with the arrival of a new one, all in the same place. As if I didn’t have enough to do, what with all the other great places that I have to visit in Stokes Croft. Sometimes I think they do it just to spite me…

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