Wired Puppy, Boston

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Wired Puppy: Speciality Coffee and TeaWired Puppy managed to become my favourite Boston Coffee Spot in a matter of days when I visited in 2013. Even though I haven’t exhaustively tried the other options available in the city (I didn’t even manage to try all the options on Newbury Street, where Wired Puppy is located!) any challenger will have to go a long way to beat Wired Puppy.

The space might not be to everyone’s tastes (I loved it, by the way), but the real killer is the coffee, which is awesome. I had three espressos in Wired Puppy (out of four visits) and each one was perfect. They were easily the best espressos on the New England leg of my trip. However, if espresso’s not to your taste, Wired Puppy has about 10 different beans/blends on offer, with a variety of brewing methods available. And if coffee’s not your thing, there are plenty of other drinks to tempt you.

Finally, the staff are really lovely too. Passionate, engaging and knowledgeable about their coffee, they go a long way to making Wired Puppy what it is.

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Caffé Vittoria

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One of many such pieces in Caffe Vittoria on Hanover StreetCaffé Vittoria is something of Boston institution, or certainly a North End institution (the North End being the Italian part of town). It’s an old-fashioned Italian Café, with heritage dating back to 1929. Spread over three floors, with four seating areas, I’ve only ever visited during the day, when just the ground floor café is open. At night it becomes more of a bar than a café, although the menus stay the same throughout the day, serving coffee, drinks, pastries and ice-cream.

As a day-time café, it trades on my sense of nostalgia as much as anything else; waitress service, a menu that is delightfully concise and to the point, and all with certain air of opulence. A real touch of old Italian class. It helps that the coffee is reliably good and, being an old-fashioned Italian espresso man myself, it very much hits the spot. The pastries, by the way, are divine.

If you want something a little different from the typical American coffee shop, then Caffé Vittoria is the place to go. For me, no trip to Boston would be complete without popping in for an espresso.

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Nude Espresso, Soho Square

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The Chalk Board at Nude Espresso's Soho Square Cafe: We roast & blend all our coffee at our roastery, just off Brick Lane. East Espresso Blend: 60% Brazil, 20% Nicaragua, 20% El Salvador. Decaf: Organic Del Obispo. Free Coffee when you buy any bag of beans!I finally tracked down Nude Espresso on Soho Square, despite having walked past it without noticing it for a year and a half! Often first impressions count and while I’ve had many first impressions on entering coffee spots over the years, this is the first time it’s been “wow, this smells nice!”. Clearly something delicious had been baking, either that or Nude Espresso is being very clever with piping in smells.

My other early impression is that Nude Espresso isn’t very big, but manages to pack a lot in, offering impressive breakfast and lunch menus, a range of delicious cakes, and a choice of regular, decaf and pour-over single origin, all roasted by Nude Espresso itself. Best of all, you can sit and watch the chef at work, which probably explains where the delicious baking smells come from…

January 2016: Sadly Nude’s branch in Soho Square has closed. You can still find Nude at the roastery on Hanbury Street and also in a new location on Bell Lane.

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North Tea Power

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The North Tea Power logo on the door of the shop in Manchester. Fortunately, it's not just about the tea!North Tea Power, in the centre of Manchester, is dead easy to find. Start at the Market Street tram stop. Turn your back on the Costa and Nero that face you as you step off the tram and gird your loins when you see the Starbucks on the other side of the road. Head down Tib Street, past the Starbucks, and, after a short walk, you’ll reach the crossroads with Church and Dale Streets. On the other side, on an elevated colonnade running along the right hand side of the street, you’ll find North Tea Power.

Since the summer of 2010, when it opened, many people have considered North Tea Power to be the place to have fine tea and coffee in Manchester and I can see why. It’s lovely and the owners, Wayne and Jane, have poured their passion and attention to detail into every aspect of the place. Come on, you have to admire that level of dedication: they even have rhyming names! This infectious love has rubbed off on everything, including the rest of the staff, making North Tea Power one of the nicest spots I’ve been to for a long while.

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Coffee Spot Tour of Edinburgh

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An espresso, made by my Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, in a classic white cup and saucer from Acme & Co., New Zealand, distributed in the UK by Caravan Roastery.The Coffee Spot goes from strength-to-strength. When I started, I intended to publish once a week. Four months on, I am publishing twice a week and averaging over 500 views a week, with over 200 regular visitors, which is amazing! However, real life occasionally raises its head, so for the next four or five weeks, I am going to have to go back to publishing once a week.

It’s nothing serious, just that I’m very busy and then off to America two weeks today. Much as I love the Coffee Spot, I don’t want to spend half my holiday blogging, so going down to once a week makes sense. While I’m away, I’ll try to blog at least one Coffee Spot from the three main places I’m visiting: Boston, New York City and Montreal. Any recommendations gratefully received, especially Montreal, since it’s my first visit there.

In the meantime, I thought you’d enjoy a brief round-up of my recent Coffee Spot tour of Edinburgh, plus a couple of my old favourites, all in the form of a slideshow (click on the picture for the full Coffee Spot)… If this proves successful, I might do a few more roundups on Mondays, with the regular Coffee Spots published on Thursday as normal.

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Caffeine & Co

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The store front of Caffeine & Co, on Manchester's St James's Square, where the most is made of what little frontage there is with a huge logo!Manchester‘s Caffeine & Co is not the sort of place you stumble upon by accident. In fact, it’s the sort of place you can easily walk past without noticing. Except the clever people of Caffeine & Co have put up signs all over the place so you can’t, which is just as well. Located on the inappropriately-named St James’s Square (it’s a street, not a square), just around the corner from the Town Hall, Caffeine & Co is a miracle of making the most of what you have.

Located in a space that would make a shoe box feel roomy, Caffeine & Co has created a stir since opening in June last year, serving fine coffee, excellent soup, hand-crafted sandwiches and lovely cakes (all baked on the premises) to the good folk of Manchester. Its reputation is aided by the wonderful Dan, who mans the espresso machine and who might be the friendliest and chattiest Barista I’ve ever met, and the equally wonderful Matt, who makes all the sandwiches and cakes. Between them, and the owners, Ann and Phil, they’ve created something which they can be extremely proud of.

November 2015: Dan, the barista who has run Caffeine & Co, took over the shop in his own right in May 2015. You can see what I found when I returned to the renamed Pavé Coffee earlier this month.

November 2017: Caffeine & Co/Pavé Coffee has undergone another name-change and is now Forté Espresso Bar, where I once again caught up with the lovely Dan.

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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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Workhouse Coffee, Oxford Road

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The exterior of Workhouse Coffee Company on the corner of Oxford and Edinburgh RoadsWest Reading is not somewhere I’d automatically associate with fine coffee, but I’d heard good things about the Workhouse Coffee Company, so when the basketball club had a game against the Reading Rockets, it was the perfect excuse to check it out. It was also just after Workhouse was named in the Independent’s Top 50 independent coffee shops list, so I was keen to see what the fuss was all about.

What I found was a delightful little coffee shop, perched on a corner at the end of a row of shops. Inside it is wood and white paint, which, coupled with the large windows on two of the four walls, give it an amazing sense of space. As well as being a fabulous place to drink coffee, it’s also very serious about its coffee, being a roaster as well as a coffee shop, with beans on sale and a range of drinks, including a cafetiere for two and a pour-over filter.

There is a small but lovely-looking range of cakes, along with the usual pastries. Finally, there’s a range of sandwiches, Panini and filled croissants, along with pasties and sausage rolls in case you get hungry.

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Wild at Heart Emporium

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Wild at Heart's Coffee MenuThere is something really special going on in a small block in the centre of Bristol formed by Small and Broad Streets. Leading the way is Wild At Heart, a Coffee Shop that is also a Vintage Clothes shop, a hairdressers and a tattoo parlour. Fortunately, the coffee shop is right at the front and such is its excellence, I really didn’t have to venture any further.

I could wow you with descriptions of the amazing space, the comfortable seating and the ideal surroundings for drinking coffee, but that would be to overlook the coffee itself. Kit, the man behind the coffee part of Wild at Heart, is as passionate about his coffee as anyone I know. He has the sort of set up, albeit on a smaller scale, that would make Brew Lab in Edinburgh envious. Like them, he offers the usual range of espresso-based drinks, but has also gone to great lengths to select just the right beans for his Aeropress and Clever offerings.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry, all will be explained. All you really need to know is that Wild At Heart is a great place to drink great coffee.

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Castello Coffee

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Castello Coffee's Logo at 7A Castle StreetIn the heart of Edinburgh, on the corner of George and Castle Streets, you’ll find a Starbucks. Ignore that and head down Castle Street towards the castle. Just before you get to Princes Street, you’ll find a Costa Coffee on the left. Go past that and a few steps later you’ll find Castello Coffee, possibly Edinburgh’s best kept coffee secret and one of its more recent additions, having only been open since the summer of 2012.

I’d walked past it twice before without giving it a second thought, but everyone I’d talked to about Edinburgh coffee had said excellent things about it, so I thought I’d better give it a go, making it my last stop on the Coffee Spot tour of Edinburgh. It’s a tiny place, with just enough room for a couple of tables and a bar opposite the counter. There are also a few tables outside and another tiny bar space by the window.

Despite its tiny size, it packs a lot in: breakfast, sandwiches and soup for lunch, cake, and three grinders, one for the regular, one for the guest blend and (a little) one for the decaf. I was duly impressed.

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