Prufrock Coffee on Clerkenwell’s Leather Lane, sits at the edge of the City of London, near the border with Camden and Hackney. It’s one of those legendary names in London coffee, with an equally legendary director in Gwilym Davies, along with Jeremy Challender and Klaus Kuhnke. Of course, if you don’t move in London coffee circles (I don’t really; I’m not convinced I’d recognise Gwilym if I fell over him!) then all this means nothing, leaving Prufrock to stand or fall by its success as a coffee shop.
Given how busy it was during my visit, I’d say it was doing fairly well in the success stakes. The clear focus is on the coffee, which comes from London’s Square Mile (no great surprise, given its links with Gwilym). There’s Red Brick and an Ethiopian Debllo single-origin on espresso and a pair of single-origins on filter, one through the AeroPress (Buzira from Burundi) and the other through V60 (a Juan Ticona from Bolivia).
There’s a limited cake range, with breakfast (until 11.30) and lunch (until 15:30), all prepared in the small kitchen behind the counter. While I was there, the smell of toasted banana bread kept wafting over; for once I resisted.
