Category Archives: Inner London

Coffee Spots within the Inner London Postal Region (those with postcodes starting with E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W and WC)

Caffè Culture 2016: Meet the Roasters

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The Caffe Culture Show logo from this yearIt’s very much the season for shows/festivals. April saw the London Coffee Festival, while I’m writing this during the World of Coffee in Dublin. However, today’s Saturday Supplement is all about last month’s Caffè Culture show. I’ve already covered the Caffè Culture Awards, where I was judging the Best Drink Award. However, in between my judging duties, I did have time for a (brief) look around the show.

Caffè Culture’s a different beast from the London Coffee Festival: for starters, it’s trade only, so tends to have a more relaxed atmosphere, particularly compared to the Saturday/Sunday at the Festival, where people are in and out within three hours. Of course, the exhibitors are also different, with an emphasis on the café trade as a whole, not just speciality coffee.

That said, Caffè Culture has made a definite effort in the last two years to embrace the speciality end of the market, providing a platform for small roasters to exhibit their wares. This, it turned out, was the ideal opportunity to catch up with some people I’d missed at the London Coffee Festival, as well as meeting a few that I’d not come across before. And, of course, there was cake.

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Pitch, Fulham Broadway

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A flat white from Pitch in Fulham Broadway in my Therma Cup, a double-walled, thermally-insulated china cup which I take with me on my travels.Not long ago, there wasn’t much speciality coffee around Fulham, just the long-standing Chairs and Coffee (shamefully, I’ve still not been!). However, it’s a rapidly-changing scene, which now includes the latest arrival, Pitch, which opened last week inside Fulham Broadway shopping centre. Pitch made a name for itself when it cut the back off a Cadillac and turned it into an espresso bar in Westfield shopping centre out in Stratford.

Now it’s got a slightly more conventional pitch right in the middle of the main drag at Fulham Broadway, serving Allpress coffee from an espresso-based menu, with decaf on a second grinder. There’s also hot chocolate, tea, sandwiches and an impressive range of cakes. It doesn’t stop there: Pitch has an astonishing seven types of milk-substitute! For what is essentially a takeaway place, there’s also seating at the counter (including power!), which is a nice touch.

Having started life in Westfield, which is about as mainstream as it comes, Pitch isn’t afraid of a little competition from the chains, and so it is at Fulham Broadway. Pitch has set up directly opposite Starbucks and there’s a Pret one door down. Who says speciality coffee can’t compete with the big boys?

December 2019: I believe that the Pitch Coffee location in Fulham Broadway is now permanently closed.

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Muni Coffee Co.

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The Muni Coffee Co. logo from the wall behind the counter at the Fulham Road coffee shop.I came across Muni Coffee last year on Kickstarter. The brainchild of husband-and-wife team, Julian and Jena, the idea was to bring the Filipino specialty coffee to the British coffee-drinking public by working directly with farmers in the Philippines. The coffee’s imported to the UK, then roasted on behalf of Muni by north London’s, Campbell & Syme.

Intrigued, I backed the project, which was to help Jena and Julian establish a café in London where they could serve Muni’s coffee (you can also buy it on-line). That was in September and, after months of hard work, Muni’s imported its first container of green beans, roasted them and, on Saturday, the café opened on Fulham Road. Naturally, I had to visit…

It’s not a huge place, but has a simple, uncluttered layout with seating for about 15 inside and a few more at a couple of outside tables set back from the busy Fulham Road. Obviously the main draw’s the coffee, with an espresso-based menu offering the usual third-wave favourites. However, it’s not just about coffee, with Jena’s Filipino heritage shining through when it comes to the extensive food offering. There’s breakfast, lunch and cakes, fusing traditional British & Filipino cuisine.

November 2017: Muni has, sadly, closed.

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Coleman Coffee Roasters

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A piccolo with a tulip latte art pattern in a glass on a glass saucer, seen from directly above.Not that long ago, London’s Waterloo Station was a bit of a desert for good coffee. There was the Scooter Café on Lower Marsh, plus Bean About Town’s van on the South Bank, but that was about it. However, three short years later, things have changed. Bean About Town’s been joined by Beany Green and, in the summer, the Look Mum No Hands! Pop-up. Meanwhile, on Lower Marsh, first Four Corners popped up across from the Scooter Café and now, a few doors down, there’s Coleman Coffee Roasters.

Run by Jack Coleman, who’s been roasting since 2010, the coffee shop appeared two months ago. Occupying what was, for a long time, a book shop, it’s not a huge spot, but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in character. Oh, and it has a wonderfully-secluded garden at the back.

Coleman Coffee Roasters blends elements of old-school style with a third-wave lightness of touch. There are two single-origins through the V60 and a single espresso blend. In an interesting twist, this can be pulled one of two ways, either as an espresso or an “old-fashioned” espresso. Jack also dishes up Oaties (think savoury pancakes) with various fillings.

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Sottoscala: Terrone at Pizza Pilgrims

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The Terrone & Co logoFrustrated at the London Coffee Festival by the failure of the irrepressible Edy Piro to photobomb my pictures, I went looking for him a couple of weeks later. Having (finally) visited Terrone & Co at Netil Market at the end of last year (and not found him there either!), I decided to head for Kingly Court in Soho, where Terrone & Co (Edy’s Italian coffee roasting company) has an espresso bar called Sottoscala.

For those that don’t know, Kingly Court, sandwiched between Kingly and Carnaby Streets at the western edge of Soho (and just around the corner from Soho Grind), is a marvellous, enclosed courtyard surrounded on all four sides by three storeys of cafés, bars and restaurants, with balconies running around the first/second floors. On the western side of courtyard’s ground floor, you’ll find Pizza Pilgrims, and, attached to that, under the stairs, is Sottoscala. But was Edy there…?

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Coffee

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The London Coffee Festival LogoWelcome to this, the final one of my write-ups from this year’s London Coffee Festival. Previously I’ve written about automatic filter machines, cups, various bits of kit and my coffee experiences, while there’s also my round-up, which provides an overview of the whole festival. For this, the final instalment, it’s the turn of the coffee, arguably what the London Coffee Festival is all about!

As was the case in previous years, I could have spent all four days of the Festival visiting roasters old and new and I still wouldn’t have got around them all. So, with apologies to all the wonderful roasters I failed to visit, here’s a round-up of some of the highlights, coffee-wise, from this year’s festival. I’ll start off with Old Friends, roasters well-known to the Coffee Spot, before moving onto a new addition this year, the Roasters Village. Finally, I’ll take a look at some new roasting friends that I made at the festival, including a very surprising one that featured Bourbon…

However, coffee-bloggers cannot live on coffee alone, so I’ll finish things off with a look at the wonderful food that was on offer at this year’s much-expanded White Label Kitchen (and elsewhere!).

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Look Mum No Hands! South Bank Pop-up 2016

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"Look mum no hands!", written on the side of the south-bank pop-up.It’s that time of year again: summer’s on the way (although as I write this, I’ve had the heating on and it poured with rain all day) and the Look Mum No Hands! pop-up has once again appeared under Hungerford Bridge on London’s South Bank. A fixture since 2013, the Look Mum No Hand’s pop-up joins the (sort of) all-year-round options of the Beany Green container and Bean About Town at the Real Food Market. When I last visited, in 2014, Look Mum No Hands! had already expanded considerably since its first year. Unexpectedly finding myself in London last Saturday, I naturally made a bee-line for Queen’s Walk to see what had changed this time around.

I’m pleased to say that this year, Look Mum No Hands! is bigger than ever before, with an expanded seating area under the cover of the bridge and even more food/drink options. There’s the ubiquitous Red Brick on espresso from Square Mile, plus an impressive range of craft beers and cider on tap, backed up with Pimms, prosecco, gin & tonic, vodka & tonic and wine by the glass. There’s cake and pastries, plus, if you’re really hungry, hot dogs, including a vegetarian version.

October 2016: Look Mum No Hands! has gone for another year and sadly it looks like that might be it for now…

May 2017: I checked under Hungerford Bridge and there’s no sign of Looks Mum No Hands! this year. There is a bar down there in the spot which Looks Mum No Hands! normally occupies, which suggests, sadly, that it won’t be coming back this year…

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Coffee Experiences

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Square Mile's The Canteen from the 2016 London Coffee FestivalWelcome back to my write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival. After a couple of weeks off, while I went to the Caffè Culture Show and unexpectedly discovered some specialty coffee shops in Porto, we’re back at the London Coffee Festival with my series looking at the specific aspects of the festival. In previous weeks I’ve written about automatic filter machines, cups and various bits of kit, while there’s also my round-up, which provides an overview of the whole festival. I’ll round things off next week with a look at the coffee itself.

This week it’s the turn of what I call my “coffee experiences”, which proved to be a highlight of last year’s festival, particularly the La Cimbali Sensory Sessions. By coffee experiences, I mean the things that go around the coffee itself. For example, coffee cuppings, roasting demos, coffee/food pairings and latte art lessons, all of which I managed to miss this year!

Instead I went to a couple of fascinating events organised by Square Mile and Union Hand-roasted. Square Mile’s offering, The Canteen, was an exploration of taste through various food-stuffs made from coffee or coffee waste products, while Union offered a variation on the traditional cupping.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: The Kit

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My surprise favourite bit of kit at this year's London Coffee Festival, the Marco Beverage Systems Bean Counter, doing what it does best (and indeed all it does), count (well, weigh) beans.Welcome to the third of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival (if you want an overview of the whole festival, take a look at my round-up). Here I cover individual aspects of the festival, starting with some automatic filter machines and continuing with last week’s look at cups. This week I’ll be casting my eye over some of the other kit I found, before covering, in future Saturday Supplements, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself.

I’ve already looked at one specific aspect of the kit, the surprising proliferation of automated filter/pour-over machines, which I covered two weeks ago. This time it’s a round-up of various miscellaneous bits of kit that I came across, starting with my surprise favourite, the automated bean-counting machine. Another area which particularly excites me, as a coffee shop customer, is the emergence of the modular espresso system, typified by the Mavam, which made its London Coffee Festival debut this year. Finally, I take a look at top-end grinders which are making espresso extraction ever more reliable. In this instance, it’s the Mahlkönig Peak, which was launched the festival.

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Kin

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A large chalk drawing of an octopus saying "Yo Kin" in a speech bubble, above the handwritten details of Kin's filter of the weekI’m always on the lookout for something slightly out of the ordinary, so I thought it was about time that I paid a visit to Kin, in Fitzrovia. In a city dominated by big-name local roasters such as Allpress, Caravan, Square Mile and Workshop, plus a host of other, smaller roasters, it’s always nice to find something from out of town. In this case it’s Bristol’s Clifton Coffee Roasters, with Kin using Clifton’s seasonal EQ espresso blend, plus a single-origin filter of the week on batch-brew, using the ever-reliable Moccamaster.

Kin, which will be two years old at the end of May, is in good company in this part of Fitzrovia. It’s on Foley Street, just along from Attendant and around the corner from the original Kaffeine. Long and thin, it’s an impressively bright spot, helped by generous windows at the front and a large skylight at the back. The focus at Kin is as much on the food as it is on the coffee (and loose-leaf tea from London’s Postcard Teas). There’s breakfast (served until 11.30) and lunch (12.00 to 15.30), plus copious quantities of cake to fill that awkward half-hour gap (cake is also available at other times).

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