The Caffeine Chronicles: Curators Coffee Gallery (CLOSES)

UPDATE (April 2019): Curators Coffee Gallery has sadly closed, although you can also visit its sister, Curators Coffee Studio, in the City on weekdays.

On Sunday, Magnum were giving away 25,000 ice creams on Oxford Street, making Oxford Circus even more of a nightmare than usual. Luckily, I found a calm refuge on Margaret Street, just two blocks north of the circus, in the form of Curators Coffee Gallery, a shrine dedicated to the art of coffee. Curators opened their first location, the Studio, in the City in 2012 and the Gallery made its début into London coffee society earlier this month.

Curators takes its coffee and its design seriously, which makes it perfect for me. The Gallery's decor combines Scandi minimalism, with more than a few swatches of decadent purple, including the sexy plum-coloured La Marzocco Strada that occupies centre stage. Geometry is also big here, with rogue tessellations of hexagonal tiles creeping up the walls. Oh, and did I mention the row of Chemexes, each accompanied by a stylish copper pouring kettle?

It was a hot day and I was tempted by the cold-drip coffee and intrigued by one of the daily specials — the Espresso Punch, which involves muddled strawberries, mint, sparkling water and espresso — but I didn't have a lot of time before my cinema screening, so I stuck to a regular Chemex brew.

I didn't have too much trouble choosing an accompaniment for my coffee: the peanut butter and salted caramel crunch bar had my name all over it, and I happily munched my way through it while I waited for my coffee.

The coffee itself was flavoursome and fruity. It came served in a suitably stylish handle-less, grooved cup. The Chemex was £3, but they also do pre-brewed filter coffee for £2.60, and espresso+milk combos for £2.80.

Curators also sell a carefully curated selection of the most stylish variations of the usual coffee-geek kit, including cool copper V60 drippers, and they also run coffee-making classes. I will definitely be back to try some of their coffee 'creations' — and when I've had a close run-in with the nearby TopShop and need somewhere sophisticated and serene to regroup.

Curators Coffee Gallery. 51 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8SG (Tube: Oxford Circus).

The Caffeine Chronicles: Bean & Ground Review

I'm always looking for ways to try out new coffees — especially ways that don't require me to venture further than the office mail room, if I'm having a busy week. A coffee-discovery company called Bean & Ground, which does just that, sent me a code to try out their coffee for free and two bags later, I'm pretty impressed.

Signing up is simple and once you've set up an account, you will receive a package with two 125g bags of different single-origin coffee varieties from around the world in the post, as frequently as you like, from every week to every 6 weeks. The six-week option is great for people like me who like the convenience of a coffee-delivery service but also enjoy picking out their own coffee at London roasters. You can have the coffee ground for you, but I prefer to grind the beans myself. The website itself is well designed and easy to use.

My first coffee delivery arrived within a couple of days of placing the order and I got one bag of Nicaraguan coffee from Santa Rita Estate and one variety from Sierra de Agalta in Honduras. To be honest, I would prefer to be able to select myself which coffees I receive, as I can with Pact Coffee — I know my taste in coffee and I know what works well with the Aeropress brew method I use — but Bean & Ground do a great job at providing a diverse range of coffee varieties in their bags. The only problem is, I guess, that if you really disliked a particular coffee, there isn't a way of preventing them from sending it — or similar varieties — in the future.

That being said, the quality of the two coffees I tried was really good. The Honduran variety was my favourite and brewed in an Aeropress, it had the smooth, rich flavour that I prefer for my morning brew. The Nicaraguan coffee had a cleaner and livelier taste, which makes for a refreshing drink during London's current warm spell. The coffee is posted within seven days of roasting, so it arrives nice and fresh.

Bean & Ground are kindly offering Double Skinny Macchiato readers a discount on their first coffee delivery, so if you're interested in trying out their service, you can get two bags of coffee for £2 (the usual price is £7.95 for two 125g bags) with the code DSMCOFFEE. Sign up here.

"They're Talking Apes with Big-Ass Spears"

Has it really been three years since Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes came out? Apparently so, and CGI has also come a long way since 2011, as clearly shown in ROTPOTA's sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which has Matt Reeves (best known for his TV show Felicity) at the helm.

During the final credits of ROTPOTA, we watched as an animated graph depicting the rapid demise of humankind after the outbreak and spread of a virus that emerged from efforts to devise a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. The eponymous apes — a mix of lab test subjects and zoo animals — formed an army, fighting off the humans on a dramatic battle scene on the Golden Gate Bridge, before marching into Muir Woods.

DOTPOTA opens ten years later, and after a quick update on the status of humanity (spoiler alert: not good) via a series of news reports, we rejoin Caesar (Andy Sirkis), the chimp hero of the first film and now the kingpin of the happy ape community of Muir Woods. Although there are some dangers — Caesar narrowly avoids being killed by a bear, thanks to his second-in-command, the troubled Koba (Toby Kebbell), for example — life is generally good. But everything changes when Caesar's adolescent son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) and his friend Ash (Doc Shaw) encounter a small group of humans one day. Panicked, one of the humans — the often rash Carver (Kirk Acevedo) — shoots and injures Ash, prompting the fury of the rest of the ape tribe, who then drive the humans out of the woods.

Back in San Francisco, we learn that humans haven't yet been completely wiped off the planet, but things are not looking good, as Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) struggles to retain some sense of order. Power is a particular problem, with diesel supplies expected to run out within weeks, and the group in the forest, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), were trying to reach and repair a dam that could help to turn the lights back on. Although frightened by wrath of the apes, Malcolm and a small group, including his girlfriend (Keri Russell) and teenage son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), return to the woods to try to persuade Caesar to let them try to fix the dam.

Caesar grudgingly agrees, to the consternation of Koba, who heads back to the city to try to find evidence that the humans are up to no good. He finds a couple of ne'er-do-wells sitting on an arsenal of weaponry and idly carrying out target practice. Koba suffered mistreatment at the hands of humans for his whole life as a lab subject and is understandably distrustful of them. He claims to be loyal to Caesar but is worried that Caesar's love of humans — he had a happy childhood living with Will (James Franco) in the first film — is clouding his judgement and making him unable to see what is best for the apes. When Koba is unable to convince Caesar that declaring war on the humans is the only option, he decides to take matters into his own hands, and as war and chaos descends, it is unclear whether there will be a happy ending for either side.

I really enjoyed DOTPOTA — possibly even more than the first film — and it's one of those rare movies where I would have been happy to watch for another 20 minutes. The visual effects and the animation was very impressive, but it was the characters — especially the ape characters — that really won me over. I was more concerned about what would happen to Caesar, his family and his old buddies, such as Maurice the orang-utan (Karin Konoval), than of what would happen to what might be the last bastion of human life. Malcolm was a decent enough fellow and generally seemed to do the right thing, but there were plenty of less sympathetic humans too, such as Dreyfus and Carver. Not that the apes were perfect either: Koba made for a pretty good baddy. As Caesar puts it, "I see now how much like them we are."

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is, of course, a summer blockbuster and there are plenty of dramatic action sequences. It's also a compelling cautionary tale that tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the ape protagonists.

"Music Turns Everyday Banalities into Transcendent Pearls"

I haven't seen John Carney's most famous film, Once, although I do have and love the soundtrack. Its IMDb summary does sound fairly similar to that of his latest film, Begin Again, which stars Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo:

Once: A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story

Begin Again: A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed Begin Again and will try to check out its less posh predecessor. As Begin Again opens, Greta (Knightley) and Dan (Ruffalo) are both having nightmare days. Greta has just found out that her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) — who is also her musical partner who has recently been signed up to a big record label — has been cheating on her. She leaves him and crashes with her busker friend Steve (James Corden) in his grungy New York apartment. Steve drags her to an open-mic night and at the end of her set forces her to play one of her songs. It's a good song but isn't very well received by the audience. Meanwhile, one-time hotshot record exec Dan manages to lose his job and the respect of his teenage daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) in a single day. He has no permanent home but drives around Manhattan in a ridiculous vintage Jag, listening listlessly to CD submissions and desperately trying to find the next big thing.

Drunk and lonely Dan rocks up in the same bar in which Greta is playing. We see this scene twice: once from Greta's point of view and again from Dan's perspective, where he loves the song and imagines what it could become with accompaniments and post-production. Dan tries to sign her up to his (now ex-) label, she rebuffs him, saying she just likes to write songs because she enjoys it. But they go to a bar and talk some more, fight some more, and he persuades her to postpone her flight back to the UK for a few days while she shows Dan's partner at Distressed Records, Saul (Mos Def), her stuff.

It turns out that Saul isn't too keen but he tells Greta to put together a demo and he'll give her another shot. Instead of renting a studio, Greta and Dan decide to record an album at various outdoor sights around Manhattan, from the boating lake in Central Park, to a back alley in the Lower East Side, to a rooftop next door to the Empire State Building. They recruit a series of musicians, including Steve, a couple of Juilliard students, a former ballet-school pianist, some local kids and even Dan's daughter Violet. They have fun and the music sounds great.

Meanwhile Dan and Greta get to know each other better, and a friendship — and maybe more — develops between them. But Greta is still processing her feelings for Dave, who is off on tour being a Big Time Musician, and Dan's relationship with his estranged wife Miriam (Catherine Keener) isn't exactly past tense, either.

Although the phrase 'feel-good movie' usually sends my inner cynic into overdrive, you do come out of Begin Again feeling really upbeat and energised. Knightley, as the uptight, introvert Brit who finds a new confidence in her talent and in herself, is really good, although it's Ruffalo's performance as the drunk, depressed loser who is trying to get back on track that carries the film, and Keener is always fun. As with Once, the songs are great too, my favourite being the screw-you song that Greta makes up and then leaves as a voicemail message on Dave's phone while he is picking up a Grammy. No, Begin Again doesn't really break new ground but it won me over, especially because it's as much of a love story with New York as with music and among the main characters.

The Saskatoon Caffeine Chronicles

When I travel to a new place – especially one that isn't especially known for having great coffee — I like to do a little online research before I go, i.e. searching Google for "independent coffee bar in X". This has two benefits: first, of course, it means I don't have to settle for a Starbucks for my morning brew; and second, good coffee bars are often located in areas that have other cafés, shops and things to do that I like. Just follow the Aeropress!

The Vancouver Caffeine Chronicles

I spent just over three days in Vancouver, Canada, but still managed to sample a fair bit of the city's coffee culture. Here are my four favourite coffee bars.

La Fin de Vancouver

I had a 12-hour layover in Vancouver on my way back to London, but I didn't mind too much as I could leave my suitcase at the left luggage and take the Sky Train into the city. It takes about 20 minutes and a day pass, which gives you access to most public transport within the city, is under $10. My first destination was the Lululemon Lab, a design hub on West Broadway, where local designers collaborate to produce technical clothing that is a little hipper (i.e. less colourful) than the regular Lulu kit. It's all locally made — very locally, in fact: in the room adjacent to the store.

A Prairie Wedding in Saskatoon

I'm back in Vancouver now, about to head back to London, but I've been getting a bit behind, so here's what happened in Saskatoon.

Saskatoon: The Paris of the Prairies

Yesterday was our last day in Vancouver — for now, at least — but our flight to Saskatoon wasn't until the afternoon, so we had a little bit of time to spend in the city. I did my usual run along the waterfront, followed by coffee at Revolver (still my favourite Vancouver coffee bar so far).

Vancouver: Granville Island, Gastown and Mount Pleasant

Yesterday morning, I decided it was time to see a bit of the south-west side of Vancouver's waterfront, so I ran along the jogging path past Sunset Beach and into Stanley Park, where I paused at Third Beach to stretch before running back to my hotel via a caffeine stop at Timbertrain Coffee Roasters on West Cordova for a most excellent pourover made using a gorgeous copper-coloured Kalita dripper.

Vancouver: Suspension of Disbelief

Jet lag be damned: I woke up at 7.30 yesterday morning and went for a run along the waterfront and into Stanley Park — a huge, green, sprawling nubbin on the northern end of downtown Vancouver, and the largest urban park in North America. Jogging and cycling paths circle the sea wall around there perimeter of the park, and there are plenty of sights along the way, from totem poles to Vancouver's Little Mermaid equivalent, also known as Girl in a Wetsuit.

Canada Day in Vancouver

Yesterday was a long day. The eight-hour time difference between London and Vancouver meant that when we landed at 2 pm Pacific Time, there was still a lot of day to get through in order to beat jet lag. Although I usually try to avoid travelling on national holidays, arriving in Vancouver on Canada Day was actually really fun. It helped that the weather was beautiful, so after we'd checked into our Downtown hotel, we walked down to Canada Place on the waterfront where some of the festivities were in progress.