Best Coffee Places in London? An honest Coffee Review.

In August 2020, C and I decided to go on a journey to find an amazing cup of coffee in London. I typed ‘best coffee in London’ in my search window, looked at several coffee related websites, and picked 9 coffee shops whose names came up a lot.

The Cafes:

Kaffeine (Fitzrovia)

Flat White (Soho)

Ozone Coffee Roasters (Shoreditch)

The Attendant (Shoreditch)

The Attendant (Fitzrovia)

Nordic Bakery (Soho)

The Espresso Room (Covent Garden)

Campbell and Syme (East Finchley)

Saint Espresso (Angel)

I am going to be bold and actually rank the above 9 coffee places from ‘not so best’ to ‘actually the very best’!

Number 9: The Attendant (Fitzrovia)

Entrance of The Attendant (Fitzrovia) London

Is in an old Victorian public toilet and great for tourists. Great for Londoners too, but they really need to up their coffee game, like, right now. My double espresso (Brazil) went from sour beginning, to vinegary, then to the quick ending with a very assertive bang of, you guessed it, vinegary-sourness.

Single espresso at The Attendant (Fitzrovia) London

The thing is, I like The Attendant, they are so warm and welcoming. I just wish I could like their coffee as much I like the friendly staff.

Price: Espresso £2.30

1 word to describe The Attendant (Fitzrovia): ‘vinegar’

Number 8: Campbell and Syme (East Finchley)

One could speculate that The Attendant’s unique flavour could be due to old coffee beans. It was post COVID lockdown after all. I just can not find any other reasons why such nice people can make such bad coffee.

Single espresso at Campbell and Syme (East Finchley) London

Anyway, Campbell and Syme. In this case, I could actually taste the 0.5 second of floral notes and lovely flavour in between aggressive waves and waves of sharp sourness. So in my humble opinion (aka: guess), that was good old under extraction. Again, very quick finish. I had a single espresso (Ethiopia).

Espresso: £2.20

1 word to describe Campbell and Syme: ‘Finchley’

Number 7: Nordic Bakery (Soho)

I don’t know anything about Scandinavian food. So, Nordic Bakery‘s famous cinnamon bun tasted really ‘foreign’ to me. I was expecting soft, buttery, sweet pastry, but no, it had the texture of undercooked bread, but you instinctively know that it’s supposed to be that way (of course I could be completely wrong!)
Eventually I got used to the chewy texture and the flavour of cinnamon was beautiful.

Filter coffee and cinnamon bun at Nordic Bakery (Soho) London

Oh yes, the coffee! I had filter coffee which had a really interesting flavour. Although it didn’t have too many complex layers, aroma and smoothness lingered and filled my mouth nicely. This seemingly ‘less complex’ flavour went really well with the texture and the flavour of the cinnamon bun.

Price: Filter Coffee £2.60, Cinnamon Bun £2.90

1 word to describe Nordic Bakery: ‘Cinnamon’

Number 6: The Attendant (Shoreditch)

I must be obsessed with The Attendant, I don’t seem to be able to stop talking about them. The thing is, I like The Attendant, and this is my favourite Attendant. The staff are full of positive attitude, genuinely welcoming and genuinely care about making customers happy. We had long black and espresso (Brazil) which had nice sweetness and sourness, but unfortunately they were not exactly the most impressive or memorable.

Espresso and long black at The Attendant (Shoreditch) London

Price: Espresso £2.30, Long black £2.70

1 word to describe The Attendant (Shoreditch): ‘Positivity’

Number 5: Ozone Coffee Roasters (Shoreditch)

Espresso at Ozone Coffee Roasters (Shoreditch)

What? How could Ozone be anything other than number one, the place looks stunning with a high ceiling and large windows and the staff members move like ballet dancers and because they’re so cool they can add 12.5% service charge to your coffee, and, and…

Exactly.

These are probably the reasons why Ozone could never be number one in my book. They just lack in that friendly-neighbour-vibe. They have a range of coffees and we tried an espresso and batch filter coffees. The single origin espresso (Brazil) was complex enough and had a couple of interesting layers of flavours. The batch filter coffee which they change daily, however, I wasn’t convinced by entirely. We had El Salvador and Nicaragua both of which had interesting flavours, but I found myself trying to look for it through the predominant flavour of water as freshness and clarity were not there. Service was attentive and friendly, but everything felt bit like a ‘show’ to me.

Batch brew at Ozone Coffee Roasters (Shoreditch) London

Price: Espresso £2.80 (!!!), Batch brew (aka. water) £3.20

1 word to describe Ozone: ‘12.5%’

Number 4: Flat White (Soho)

Please don’t call your cafe Flat White because I end up ordering flat white when I actually want an espresso (smiley Emoji, smiley Emoji.)

🙂

Flat White’s flat white was tasty and polite – maybe too polite. It’s perfectly good and tasty, but you forget about it the moment you leave the cafe. Their single origin espresso (Columbia) was a bit more interesting. Excellent location in the heart of Soho. The vibe was more like a takeout stand rather than a ‘cafe’ and slightly lacks in that community feel.

Price: Espresso £2.50, Flat White £3.20

1 word to describe Flat White: ‘Good-location (I-discovered-hyphone)’

Number 3: Kaffeine (Fitzrovia)

Kaffeine uses beans from Square Mile which I tend to like. I enjoyed my long black as coffee/water ratio was just right for me. As for espresso… sadly the sour fest continued even at top 3. Not fruity sourness, but the kind of sourness that lasts a bit longer than you would like. A bit like Flat White, the place lacked in a sense of ‘coffee passion’ and felt more like a takeout stand, it was like they forgot how to be a cafe.

Espresso and long black at Kaffeine (Fitzrovia). London cafe.

Price: Around £2.50. I just remembered that they didn’t even give us time to contemplate our choices – just straight up ‘what are you having?’ We probably should’ve said ‘tall caramel latte macchiato please’.

1 word to describe Kaffeine: ‘takeout’

Number 2: Saint Espresso (Angel)

Saint Espresso came to me as a complete curve ball. They are not as ‘talked about’ as the above central London cafes and in general have more of a low-key presence. I went in and there just was nothing special about them. I sat down with their Columbian single espresso and… went speechless.

Espresso at Saint Espresso (Angel). Best coffee in London?

Fruitiness, then a wholesome nutty sweetness, after a brief revisit of fruitiness mixed with fresh fragrance. There was a nice long lingering full nutty flavour in my mouth which I could just sit back and enjoy.

This could only mean that they are getting many parts of the coffee making process right: the beans, the roasting, the storing, the water, the grinding etc etc…

Saint Espresso (Angel). Best coffee in London?

I was very impressed and I am very going back.

Price: Espresso £2.30

1 word to describe Saint Espresso: ‘Textbook’

Number 1: The Espresso Room (Covent Garden)

Espresso at The Espresso Room (Covent Garden). Best coffee in London?

They are hands down the best coffee shop in London for me right now – without a doubt. If Saint Espresso’s coffee is that textbook, perfect student, The Espresso Room is the cool bad boy (or girl, if you prefer) with all that swagger and attitude. Whilst having the perfect layers, balance and wholesomeness, there are also fireworks in The Espresso Room’s espresso. Those exciting spicy, ‘flagrancy’ flavour explosions.

The barista really knows what he is doing and understands the art of coffee making.

The Espresso Room (Covent Garden). Best coffee in London?

I was also completely smitten by the cafe’s warm and friendly atmosphere where people (neighbours and regulars I guess?) randomly pop in just to say ‘hi’!

This was a huge element that was missing from all other cafes… it was this community vibe. If you think about it, one is not mutually exclusive of the other, but many speciality coffee places are too busy ‘looking cool’, ‘looking special’ or just in plain complacency. Little did they know that that was actually affecting the flavour of their coffee (ie: sour coffee = under extraction = lack of care).

Espresso Room does not only have quality beans and experienced barista, they have passion and people skills which you can really taste in each cup.

This was exactly ‘the cafe’ I was looking for in London.

V60 filter coffee at The Espresso Room (Covent Garden). Best coffee in London?

Price: Espresso £2.40, V60 filter coffee £4

1 word to describe The Espresso Room: ‘PASSION’

Afterthought

I thought about more poetic ways of saying this, but I couldn’t, so there – it is hard to find a cup of properly brewed coffee in London.

As already said, I think there is so much complacency and it frustrates me. The London complacency, the so-called ‘speciality coffee place’ title complacency, the ‘come get our takeaway paper cup and look cool’ complacency.

So, I urge people not to settle for less. Coffee shops should not be about their branding. If they: don’t, cant’, or don’t care, about making a properly brewed cup of coffee, then what are they? (Specially when their coffee costs around £3!!) At the moment, out of above 9 places, I would personally only recommend the top two.

I’d rather have the 99p filter coffee from a fast food restaurant than paying £3 for just an okay coffee.

I do plan to revisit most of them of course, and I am hoping that the results is going to be very different, a bit more exciting and level pegging next time around.