Review: Cafe Brera, Canary Wharf

About Canary Wharf is not really the ideal place for my kind of café. No one really lives around there and so the sense of community is lacking. Not only are the workers transient, passing through only for a quick meeting or double-macchiato to go, they are also workers from the world of finance and…

Review: Ground Control, Angel

About If you are in Angel and want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Upper Street, it is worth taking a stroll among its many back lanes, where numerous hidden gems can be found. Whether it is pubs over looking the canal, the tree-lined streets around Liverpool Road, the deli’s and restaurants…

Review: Feast, Muswell Hill

About Overlooking London, Muswell Hill can sometimes be the forgotten cousin of its neighbours Crouch End and Highgate. Despite its lack of transport links (the nearest tube is over a mile away in East Finchley) and its slightly rougher element at night, during the day this busy high street has plenty to offer with a…

Top 10 Film Scenes Set in a Cafe

Cafes and films go together like coffee and cake. Maybe it’s because most writer do their best work in cafes or maybe it’s just an easy place to shoot? While comedies and rom-coms tend to use the quirky cafe setting most often, I’ve also include some action movies and crime dramas in here. And, of…

Review: Federation Coffee, Brixton

About While visiting Brixton Village Market, I really wanted to review one new cafe and one old cafe. However, after my awful coffee at Wild Caper, I was gagging for a really good cuppa. Looking around, Federation looked most like it was a serious cafe. Also, it was buy far the busiest which I took…

Review: Wild Caper, Brixton

About On my first review visit south of the river, I decided the best place to begin would be Brixton Village. Once a run-down old market, some inventive thinking by the local council has seen this area regenerated – or is that gentrified? While the market is now a nice place to visit for coffee…

Review: Bread and Bean Cafe, Archway

About Archway is a funny old place. Set where it is, barely a mile from the likes of Crouch End, Highgate and Hampstead Heath, it should be a bustling hub of people who want to live in these areas but can’t afford it. Instead, it’s a bit more like a transport hub, with the tube,…

Review: The Kauri Tree, Stoke Newington

About The Kauri Tree is a relatively new boy of the Stoke Newington café scene. There’s very little information available about it, except that it opened in July and is owned by Alex Ross, former owner of Granita and the Spence. It serves Climpson coffee. And, it has a lot of local competition. Coffee –…

Review: The Haberdashery, Crouch End

About While it’s only been in Crouch End for a few years, The Haberdashery has the feel of somewhere that’s always been around. And in that short time it has won numerous awards including Best Coffee Shop in London at the London Lifestyle Awards. It’s somewhere I’ve been going to since it opened and I’ve…

Review: J+A Cafe, Clerkenwell

About After visiting the Barbican Centre, I was wandering around the lanes of 60s brutalist architecture and old Victorian terraces, trying to find a decent cafe. As with a lot of tourist attractions, nearby eateries tended to be aimed at either tourists or the business crowd. However, tucked away down a little alley off Clerkenwell…