SE22
Allpress espresso bar
The eponymous Michael Allpress founded his Titanic roaster in 1989 in a garage in Auckland. Today the name is an abbreviation for premium beans; They are ground in over 1,500 indie cafes worldwide, including private label outlets in New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the UK. Near the former site of London’s first all-press roastery – on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch – is this chic espresso bar, a muted gray vision, with steel flashes and metric trough loads of sustainably sourced specialty beers.
E2
Climpson & Sons
Plunging from the crowds of Broadway Market into the airy, gray storefront of Climpson & Sons is a Saturday morning rite of passage; That the espresso, blend, and single-origin-based drinks are so good almost seems like a bonus, although quality is ensured by using an eco-friendly Loring Smart Roast S35 (which they say enhances the coffee’s harmonious sweetness ). notes and clarity of taste) and a process of “blind cupping” in the selection of their beans. They also run Climpson’s Arch over in London Fields – a pop-up restaurant which currently houses Tomos Parry’s totemic, Basque-influenced Joint Brat.
E8
Break
A mint beacon in the otherwise cheerless development surrounding West Hampstead Overground, Intermission is a cute compact joint with a strong focus on sustainability and provenance – not least because they source house roasted beans from Raw Material, a company that conducts 100 per cent returns its profits to the small producers it supports. The piccolos and flat whites are great, the batch brew filter even more so; There’s also a snazzy concession to ephemera for making coffee and some snazzy bags to carry everything home.
NW6
antipode
In the shadow of the Hammersmith flyover, Antipode is a staple of the southern hemisphere style that has long been the caffeine benchmark in west London. Founded by Jerome Dwyer on the model of sidewalk cafes in Melbourne, its original vocation was to provide decent white wines in a part of the city that was completely lacking in them (at least in the early 2010s). These days, Square Mile Joe’s steaming mugs are complemented by a chic selection of low-intervention wines, Aussie beers and nightly cocktails.
W6
home
Sure, London has plenty of fika-forward bakeries – Bageriet, Fabrique, Söderberg and others – but great Nordic coffee? Fewer. Enter Hjem, a forest-green retreat on Launceston Place, opened in Winter 2019 by Danish expat Marianne Brammer to bring some sophisticated Scandi warmth to this exclusive corner of London. (Hjem appropriately translates to “home.”) There’s Climpson and Kiss the Hippo beans in the hopper, the almond milk is homemade, and (of course) there’s a short and sweet menu of spiced casseroles and savory rye sandwiches.
W8
