Category Archives: Coffee Gardens

Coffee Spots with proper coffee gardens or other sheltered outdoor seating areas.

Boston Tea Party, Honiton

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The letters BTP (with the B in white, TP in blue) over the words Boston Tea Party (Boston in white, Tea Party in blue)Over the last year, I’ve been to several large branches of the Boston Tea Party (Whiteladies Road, Birmingham and Salisbury spring to mind), so it’s nice to visit a smaller one for a change. Not that the Honiton Tea Party is tiny; it’s not, for example, on the scale of the one in Bath, but at the same time, it’s not a sprawling, multi-floor affair.

Honiton’s Tea Party occupies a beautiful, old house on Honiton High Street (Monkton House, a Grade II listed building). As with every Tea Party, it’s instantly recognisable as a Boston Tea Party, while simultaneously its own place. There’s the usual Boston Tea Party offerings: good quality food, including an all-day breakfast menu, loads of cake, and coffee from Bristol’s Extract Coffee Roasters. This includes the house-blend espresso and single-origin bulk-brew filter.

There’s something about the smaller Tea Parties that promotes a sense of intimacy. It’s not that the staff at the larger branches aren’t friendly (far from it; the Boston Tea Party staff have always struck me as very friendly), it’s just that in the smaller ones, there seems to be more time to interact and chat and, in that respect, Honiton is no exception.

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Siempre Bicycle Café

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The Siempre Bicycle Café logo, a stylised face with a handlebar moustache, painted in black on the white brick wall at the café .Glasgow’s Siempre Bicycle Café continues the long association between cycling and coffee, occupying a multi-facetted space right next to the Kelvinhall Metro station in Glasgow’s West End.

Out front, there’s a cycle shop and sales room, where you can, if you like, sit and take your coffee, while at the back, there’s an equally large room where more typical café seating shares the space with the counter, which itself encloses an open-plan kitchen. If you keep on going, there’s also a large, sheltered garden right at the back. Unless, of course, you’re coming from the station, in which case you reach the garden first, then the café and finally the bike shop. Siempre also has a takeaway window, so you don’t even have to go inside if you don’t want to.

Serving Dear Green Coffee’s Goosedubs blend on espresso, with single origins available as filter from both Dear Green and another local roaster, Charlie Mills, Siempre has got the coffee side of things covered. There’s also an impressive array of tasty-looking cakes, plus a very comprehensive food offering. This being a cycle shop as well as a café, there’s also plenty of secure bicycle storage both inside and out.

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Steampunk, The Warehouse

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Thumbnail - Steampunk (DSC_6712t)I first discovered Steampunk as a roaster when I visited Machina Espresso in Edinburgh in April 2014.

I tried the Tiger Stripes blend and was so impressed that I bought a bag to take home with me. Back then I only knew of Steampunk as a roaster and didn’t realise that it had recently opened The Warehouse, a large café in its home town of North Berwick, just along the coast from Edinburgh.

So, on my next trip to Edinburgh, I made a point of heading east to North Berwick. I’m pleased to report that I was as delighted by The Warehouse as I was by that first espresso that I had at Machina Espresso!

Spread over two floors of a lovely old building, which retains many of its original features, The Warehouse is an ideal space for a roaster-cum-café (I’ve covered the roasting side of Steampunk in a separate Saturday Supplement). There’s a large, exterior courtyard, which, on the sunny day I was there, saw good use, while downstairs you share space with both roastery and counter. Upstairs, there’s table service and a full food menu, which is all prepared in the kitchen in the corner.

November 2015: I ran into the Steampunk guys at Cup North, and discovered that Steampunk now only roasts single-origins.

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Tea House Theatre

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The Tea House Theatre on the edge of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, resplendent in the sunshine.The Tea House Theatre is, as the name suggests, an old theatre (actually, it’s not, it’s an old pub) which serves tea (actually, it does; one out of two’s not bad). It’s somewhere I’ve been going, on-and-off, for the last year, and have always meant to write up for the Coffee Spot. I’ve just never had the excuse. Until now, that is.

During a recent visit by the esteemed Bristol Café Watcher to the fair city of London, I remembered one of Café Watcher’s rare faults: a penchant for drinking tea. I therefore decided upon the Tea House Theatre as the final destination of a day spent wandering around London in the sunshine. When it comes to tea, it doesn’t get better than this, with numerous (I ran out of fingers and toes while counting) loose-leaf tea offerings.

However, probably the most relevant thing about the Tea House Theatre, given that this is the Coffee Spot, is that it DOESN’T SERVE COFFEE! That’s right: after dallying with the “other stuff” in Cardiff, I’ve finally gone the whole hog and written about a place that only does tea. And superb cake. And food. But not coffee.

It’s lovely by the way.

September 2015: I’m delighted that the Tea House Theatre was short-listed for this year’s Lunch Business Awards Best Tea Experience.

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Look Mum No Hands! Old Street

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Look Mum No Hands! sign, proclaiming itself as a Cafe, Bar & (Bike) Workshop.To celebrate the Tour de France, which enters its last week today, I thought it was about time I visited one of London’s most famous cycling cafés, Old Street’s Look Mum No Hands!. Ironically, I wrote about Look Mum No Hands! South Bank pop-up this time last year, with an update last month, so I really was overdue a visit to where it all started.

Towards the western end of Old Street, Look Mum No Hands! occupies a long, low building on the north side of the street. This being Look Mum, it’s one of the most bike-friendly places I’ve been: lots of bike-rack space out in the courtyard, a free pump for anyone wanting to top-up their tyre pressure and, just inside the door, a bike workshop.

That said, let’s not overlook the café side of the equation. With coffee from Square Mile, Look Mum No Hands! holds its own in an area dominated by top-notch coffee shops. There’s no pour-over or fancy options, just straight-forward espresso, loads of cake and a decent selection of other drinks. This backed up by a comprehensive food menu, served throughout the day, from 7.30 in the morning to 10 o’clock at night. Continue reading →

Ox Coffee

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A beautiful Gibraltar (Cortado) from Ox Coffee.Ox Coffee is a lovely spot, which I visited on my first-ever trip to Philadelphia, becoming a firm favourite of mine. I try my best to pop in whenever I visit the city, calling in back in February 2016 to see the “new” back room/garden, and again in March 2018 to sample Ox’s coffee after it had started roasting.

With its stripped-back, clean looks, Ox wouldn’t be out of place in either New York or London. It brings to mind New York spots such as Gimme! Coffee or the Bluebird Coffee Shop, as well as London’s White Mulberries. This, by the away, is more of a commentary on the rents: most places in (central) London or New York just can’t afford the sort of floor space I regularly see in Philadelphia outside of the city centre!

Ox has a similarly clean, stripped-back menu, with just a selection of cake to accompany the coffee, which these days is roasted in-house. There’s a blend, Ox Coffee #1, on espresso, and another (Ox Coffee #2; you can see where this is going) on bulk-brew, which is joined by one of two single-origins (a Guatemalan while I was there). Finally, there’s a decaf, from Stumptown.

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Brickwood Coffee and Bread

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The Brickwood Coffee & Bread sign from the front of the shop on Clapham CommonBrickwood Coffee and Bread is just a couple of doors along from Clapham Common stalwart, Black Lab. The new kid on the block arrived at the end of this summer with a burst of social media activity. Fortunately, the reality lived up to the virtual hype.

For starters, Brickwood is a lovely place. As one would expect from the name, the interior is all brick and wood: exposed brick walls, bare floorboards, a wooden counter and lots of wooden tables. The ceiling, although not brick or wood, is amazing, made up of a patchwork of old coffee sacks. If you don’t fancy sitting in the main area there’s a large, secluded garden and a basement, which has a very different character from upstairs.

Brickwood serves a fairly standard espresso-based menu using London-roaster Caravan’s Market Blend, a great all-round coffee. There’s a good range of sandwiches and an extensive brunch menu, as well as what looked to be an excellent range of cake. However, I was there for brunch and wasn’t able to sample any (although judging by the rate at which the cakes were going, that didn’t seem to be putting most people off!).

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CoffeeWorks Project

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The Slayer at Coffee Works Project, complete with bottomless portafiller, in actionLiterally a stone’s throw away from Monday’s Coffee Spot, Islington’s Tinderbox, we find relative newcomer, the CoffeeWorks Project, which recently celebrated its first birthday. In fact, you could see Tinderbox from the CoffeeWorks Project’s front window and vice-versa, were it not for the brick-built arcade, now occupied by a Jack Wills, which separates Islington’s Upper Street (Tinderbox) from the High Street (CoffeeWorks Project).

The CoffeeWorks Project, as the name implies, is all about the coffee, although that shouldn’t detract from the excellent sandwiches and cakes, plus the quirky layout and lovely garden (sadly closed in the winter). However, pride of place goes to the Slayer espresso machine, the only one in London and one of (I believe) just four in the country. Using this beauty, owner Peter and his team get the best out of their Has Bean coffee, throwing some very impressive pour-overs into the mix.

While I was there, the CoffeeWorks Project had two espresso single-origins, plus a decaf single-origin, to go with another three single-origin pour-over options and a bulk-brew filter thrown in for good measure. I did my best to sample them all, but may well have to return for another go!

December 2016: The CoffeeWorks Project is now a mini-chain with three branches (this, Leadenhall Market and Blackfriars Road) and, since the summer, it has been roasting all its own coffee.

September 2018: Good news and bad news. The CoffeeWorks Project is now a mini-chain with five branches, but sadly the Leadenhall Market branch has had to close.

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Taylor Street Baristas, Brighton

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The Taylor Street Baristas since, with its emblem of a latte-art leafA short walk down Queen Street in the direction of the sea from Brighton Station sees you arrive at Taylor Street Baristas, set back from the street on a slightly elevated pavement. From the outset, it’s a very tempting place, the sort of coffee shop that makes you want to immediately step inside. I’d have gone in even if it (a) wasn’t on my list and (b) hadn’t been recommended by other Brighton coffee shops.

Inside, Taylor Street Baristas is just as welcoming as it appears from the street. However, for me the main draw is the lovely little garden at the back. Good coffee shops with decent gardens are in short supply, so it’s always a pleasure to find another one (the lucky folks of Brighton also have The Marwood: it’s not fair!).

It also helps that the coffee is excellent. Taylor Street Baristas offers the usual espresso-based menu, along with batch-brew filter and V60/Aeropress options. The house blend (Rogue Espresso) is from Union Hand-roasted and there are regularly-rotating guest espressos and guest filters. While I was there, the guest espresso was Has Bean’s Kicker blend, with a Has Bean Costa Rica on the batch-brew.

November 2015: Taylor Street Baristas has closed its iconic Brighton branch to concentrate on the stores in London, plus the chain’s expansion plans. I know that there were plans to sell it as a going concern, so watch this space, but for now it’s closed.

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Talkhouse Coffee

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Talkhouse Coffee, as seen from the opposite side of Portobello RoadMy visit to Talkhouse Coffee has been a long time coming. I got nagged about it at the London Coffee Festival, but it still took me another six months to make it over to the top end of Portobello Road… (This, by the way, isn’t strictly true. The day I ended up at Bean About Town and The Fields Beneath in Kentish Town, I did actually go to Talkhouse first, but it was a Monday, so it was closed… Planning fail!).

However, it was worth the wait/aborted attempt. Talkhouse is a fantastic place, with multiple spaces, each with its own character. The staff are very welcoming and friendly, the coffee excellent and the cakes superb. The sandwich I had (red pepper and hummus on brown bread; very spicy) was pretty decent too! It’s also full of nice little touches, such as table service and a bottle of water turning up on your table without you having to ask.

The focus, however, is very much on the coffee, and what a choice there is! Four options on the Aeropress (two from Square Mile, two from Workshop), bulk filter and Workshop’s Cult of Dome on the espresso machine. You can’t go wrong.

July 2015: Sad news, but it looks like Talkhouse has had to close

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