Category Archives: Evening Opening

Coffee Spots open past six o’clock in the evening. Please check with the Coffee Spot in question since opening hours do change.

Coutume Instituutti

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The Coutume logo painted in the window of Coutume Instituutti: a red circle, blue circle and yellow tear-drop in a triangular arrangement above the word "Coutume". The red circle is at the top, the blue circle and tear-drop below.One of the two branches of Coutume which opened between my visits to Paris in 2013 and 2014, Coutume Instituutti is a collaboration with the Finnish Institute. Located on rue des Ecoles, the entrance is around the corner at 33, rue du Sommerard, a stone’s throw from one of my favourite Paris museums, Musee du Moyen Ages (Museum of the Middle Ages). However, during office hours, you can also get to the café through the Institute itself, via its step-free entrance on rue des Ecoles.

Since Coutume’s running the café, all the coffee is roasted by Coutume, with the usual selection on offer. There’s a small, very French, espresso menu, filter through V60 or Chemex, plus cold brew (I visited during the summer of cold brew) and tea. However, Instituutti has a quite un-French system of ordering and paying at the counter, then waiting for your coffee, the first time I’ve seen this in a French café of any sort. Having not been to any Nordic cafés, I can’t tell if this is the Finnish influence at work.

The café itself is a large, sparsely populated space, which, if I allow myself one criticism, can sometimes feel cold and clinical.

March 2018: it seems that the Finnish Institute is closed for refurbishment until the summer. Whether or not Coutume will remain as the house cafe when it reopens remains to be seen.

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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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Moon Beer & Coffee

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A neon sign, "moon" on the bare brick chimney breast of Moon Beer & Coffee in ChesterI first came across what was then the Harvest-Moon Espresso Bar a couple of years ago, not long after it had opened in Chester and it’s been on my radar ever since. I popped by in 2013, but it was unexpectedly closed that day and I hadn’t had another chance until now.

In that time, Harvest-Moon has undergone some changes, not least a name change to Moon Beer & Coffee after getting a licence in November last year (although the signage and some of the social media hasn’t caught up yet). While the focus is still on coffee, with an old-school espresso menu based around a house-blend from Merseyside roasters Coffee 1652, plus regularly-rotating guests, Moon now offers bottled craft beer from around the world. There’s also food with an American slant. For breakfast: toast, porridge or bagels, with more bagels and sandwiches for lunch. Finally nacho or chilli bowls, plus hummus and Bavarian meat platters, are on offer.

Just around the corner from the Cathedral with the library across the street, Moon is a cosy spot. There’s not much seating, which spread across two inter-connected spaces, while the staff are friendly and engaging with both regulars and visitors alike.

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Café Lomi

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An espresso is a classic earthenware Inker cup from Café LomiI don’t know what the French for “hipster” is, but “Café Lomi” might be a fairly good stab. It’s the closest I’ve come in Paris to what I think of as a hipster café, right down to the undecorated walls, exposed air-conditioning conduits and bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The clientele was pretty hipster too; for example, I wasn’t the only one taking pictures of his coffee and every other person was on a laptop, Macs outnumbering Windows two-to-one. The clinching argument? It carries Caffeine Magazine. I rest my case…

Putting pointless classification to one side, Café Lomi is a café/roaster in the northern reaches of Paris. Café-roasters seem to be much more common in Paris than they are in the UK; of the limited number of third-wave Parisian cafés I’ve visited, Lomi is the third, joining La Caféothèque and Coutume when it opened in 2012. In Lomi’s case, it is a café at the front, and a roaster at the back, where the chunky Giesen turns out espresso blends and single origins both for use in Lomi and to supply other cafés and restaurants. Sadly you can’t wander into the back and see the roaster in action though…

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La Bottega Milanese, The Light

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A flat white from La Bottga Milanese in Leeds. The coffee is in a white, tulip cup with the words "La Bottga Milanese" written on the inside of the rim, with the cafe's logo on the front.One of two outlets for La Bottega Milanese in Leeds, the branch in the Light pre-dates the recently-opened branch in Bond Court. Naturally, this being the Coffee Spot, I visited them in reverse order, first calling into Bond Court before venturing to The Light (which is a shopping and retail centre built around the old headquarters building of the Leeds Permanent Building Society).

The Light itself is a wonderful structure, of soaring brick facades and glass ceilings. La Bottega Milanese occupies a corner spot on the ground floor, just by the escalators up to the cinema. You can sit “outside” on the street without having to worry about being rained on, since it’s all enclosed by a glass ceiling.

If you’ve read my piece on Bond Court, you’ll already be familiar with La Bottega Milanese’s offering. If not, La Bottega Milanese expertly blends Italian espresso tradition with modern, third-wave roasting know-how from Dark Woods (having previously used Grumpy Mule until the start of 2016). The food’s pretty decent too: in the morning, pastries and other breakfast goodies, replaced at lunch by sandwiches and salads, which in turn give way to cake in the afternoon. Finally, come evening, there are small plates, tapas and beer/wine. Truly a café for all occasions!

June 2020: I heard the sad news that La Bottega Milanese has had to close its espresso bar at The Light, although Bond Court is still going strong.

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Foxcroft & Ginger Update

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The letters "F & G" enclosed in a heart with an arrow through it, painted on the door, with Foxcroft & Ginger written underneathIt’s been almost two years since I first visited Foxcroft & Ginger on Soho’s Berwick Street, drawn by the recommendations of my friend Hayley and the descriptions of the legendary muffins. Since then I’ve been an irregular visitor, drawn back by the mis-matched crockery (which, although depleted in number, is still there) and, more importantly, the gorgeous basement, still a benchmark for Coffee Spot basements everywhere.

Although the number of Coffee Spots staying open into the evening has been steadily expanding, with the likes of Villiers joining the more-established Notes and Fernandez & Wells, Foxcroft & Ginger offers another alternative for those looking for good coffee in the evenings. It helps that between them they offer a wide variety of excellent food (and wine) to go with their outstanding coffee.

So, what has changed in the two years since I first went to Foxcroft & Ginger? Well, on the one hand, not a great deal, but on the other hand, quite a bit. Sometimes Coffee Spots re-invent themselves, but, in the case of Foxcroft & Ginger, it’s been a steady evolution, rather than revolution, which has driven change.

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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Boston Tea Party, Salisbury

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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)Regular readers will know that I have a love affair with the Boston Tea Party, the West Country chain that started in Bristol in the late 1990s. Indeed, my first ever Coffee Spot was the original on Park Street. So, I thought it was about time I visited what is, quite possibly, the closest Boston Tea Party to my home town of Guildford. It also happens to be, I believe, the biggest and occupies the oldest building, the Grade 1 listed Old George Inn, which dates back to the early 1300s.

As with all the other Boston Tea Parties, it has taken an iconic building and made it its own, unique place. Simultaneously, however, it’s instantly recognisable as a Boston Tea Party, a trick that’s very hard to manage and looks effortless when it’s pulled off.

Sprawling over three floors of a magnificent, historic building, the Salisbury Boston Tea Party boasts over 200 seats upstairs alone, plus an attractive outdoor seating area on the pedestrianised High Street. There’s the usual coffee offering from Bristol-based Extract Coffee Roasters, tea from Bristol-based Canton Tea Co, oodles of cake and an excellent food menu based around several all-day breakfast options.

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Grindsmith

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Grindsmith, on a rainy day in Manchester. A rainy day? Well, I never!A relatively recent addition to Manchester’s coffee scene, Grindsmith opened in February 2014. Just across the river in (say it quietly) Salford, it’s a pioneer, funding itself via Kickstarter. I should confess that I have a vested interest, having funded Grindsmith sufficiently to get the Coffee Spot a prime spot on the counter-front, just below the espresso machine.

Grindsmith isn’t big, on the scale of Manchester’s very own Caffeine Cube, aka the original Caffeine & Co on St James’ Square (now Pavé Coffee). However, it’s surprisingly spacious and comfortable, dispelling my original misconception that it was little more than a glorified container. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth: Grindsmith’s lovely, bright and gloriously-appointed shop would grace any open space in Manchester and beyond. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that someone would be bound to notice its absence, I’d be tempted to relocate it to my back garden…

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Tamp Culture

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An espresso being poured via a single-spout basket at Tamp Culture in ReadingFor a long time, speciality coffee in Reading has meant the (excellent) Workhouse Coffee with its two branches on Oxford Road and King Street. However, that is slowly changing with the arrival of several new players, including the intriguing Tamp Culture, which has been at the entrance to the Oracle centre since April of this year.

Technically a coffee cart, Tamp operates perhaps the most impressive set-up I’ve seen, with a counter that puts many a shop to shame and a range of coffee-kit and merchandising that surpasses many a speciality outlet. What’s even more impressive is that whole edifice is dismantled every evening and packed away in the Piaggio Ape that forms the backbone of the operation. There’s even outdoor seating and a nice big awning to keep the rain/sun off the counter.

Like Workhouse, Tamp roasts all its own coffee, with a range of around 20 single-origin beans. Two of these are always on offer, the choice rotating on a weekly basis, with plenty more beans available to buy. As well as the usual espresso-based options, Tamp also offers Aeropress and pour-over filter options (these aren’t on the menu, so you have to ask).

July 2020: Following enforced closure due to COVID-19, Tamp Culture has reopened, initially for takeaway and then, from the start of July, for sit-in service. You can see what I made of it when I visited at the end of the month.

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Fernandez & Wells, Somerset House

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A stumpy (a sort of mini flat white), in a glass, sitting in the sun in the courtyard of Somerset House at Fernandez and WellsAlmost a year after featuring Fernandez & Wells for the first time, with the delightful Exhibition Road branch, I thought it about time that I got around to writing up the Somerset House branch, where I’ve been a semi-regular visitor through the year. Set within Somerset House itself, with stunning views of the courtyard and, in the summer, copious outside seating, it’s one of the most physically appealing Coffee Spots that I’ve been to. Inside, high ceilings and large windows give it an immense sense of light and space, while multiple rooms, on a par with Paris’ La Caféothèque, means that there’s something for everyone.

A cross between wine-bar, deli and coffee shop, F&W’s food and coffee are as outstanding as the setting. Somerset House has a similar offering to Exhibition Road, with perhaps a slightly more extensive menu, which never fails to amaze and delight me. The coffee’s from Has Bean, with a bespoke house-blend on espresso. Open late into the evenings, it’s the perfect spot for an after-hours coffee or a bite to eat and while I haven’t tried it, the wine selection looks excellent. In the summer, it’s one of the best outdoor cafés in London.

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