If you've been following me on Instagram, you may have seen that I've recently moved house — this is also why I've been posting less frequently over the past few months. My new home is pretty close to where I used to live, but during the search, I also ventured out into the SW postcodes more often than usual. Of course, house-hunting is much better when caffeinated and luckily, there were plenty of great speciality coffee shops to visit, including the following three, listed from north to south.
The original Lane Eight in East Dulwich was one of my lockdown discoveries and although that location has now closed, I've enjoyed visiting their new coffee bar right next to Clapham Common on several occasions now. Inside, the petite but perfectly formed space is very minimalist, with light streaming through the windows onto the light-wood coffee bar, where the gorgeous black Sanremo espresso machine holds court.
It's elbow-room only inside, although there's a bench next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and another outside on the pavement of The Pavement. The menu is concise too, consisting of espresso-based drinks, batch brew, hot choc, chai and matcha. The coffee is from Assembly, with the house espresso and then a single-origin coffee on batch brew. You don't have to be too eagle-eyed to spot the bags of retail beans from guest roasters on the self by the door: Bristol-based Full Court Press and Edinburgh roaster Obadiah Coffee both featured on my most recent visit.
I had a piccolo each time I visited and all three were immaculately brewed by the friendly staff — so much so that I was a #BadBlogger and failed to photograph them. Note that there weren't ceramic cups available when I visited, so try to bring your favourite reusable cup if you can.
Lane Eight Coffee is located at 6 The Pavement, London, SW4 0HY (Tube: Clapham Common). Website. Instagram.
One of the reasons I prefer travelling to travel by bus (or on foot) rather than taking the Tube is that you often spot coffee shops — and other places — you'd like to return to. And so it was that on a bus to Tooting Broadway, I caught a glimpse of a monochrome shopfront next to Tooting Bec station that caught my attention thanks to the distinctive pink boxes of the aforementioned Obadiah Coffee beans that lined the window.
I returned to Walker Wyatt Coffee after brunch. It's been around for 13 years but as I haven't been to Tooting Bec since I competed in an athletics competition in the late 1990s, it had somehow escaped my attention. More fool me as I really enjoyed my visit to this welcoming neighbourhood coffee spot. Obadiah Coffee connection wasn't the only connection to Lane Eight, as Walker Wyatt also uses Assembly as their house espresso. I had an excellent piccolo, and also got to try a sample of the single-origin Peruvian coffee that was on batch brew, which was deliciously fruity.
As I haven't been visiting as many coffee spots as I'd have liked over the past few months, it was also very nice indeed to chat coffee, London and life with the friendly baristas, especially Beau, with whom I compared notes on the Kono Meimon dripper. When you go for the coffee but stay for the conversations, you know you're onto a winner. The carrot cake was ace too, and there's plenty of seating inside the airy café.
Walker Wyatt Coffee is located at 3 Upper Tooting Road, London, SW17 7TS (Tube: Tooting Bec). Website. Twitter. Instagram.
Juliet's Quality Foods, the bruncheria formerly known as Milk Teeth, on Mitcham Road in Tooting Broadway had been on my brunch wishlist for some time until I finally visited last month. The brunch is, indeed, particularly special: I enjoyed the smoked caviar folded eggs, but check out the specials, like the banana and cascara bread with salted espresso butter.
My piccolo came served on a saucer that declared: "Worth the visit." And I most definitely concurred. They were serving coffee from Berlin-based roaster The Barn, with espresso-based drinks and single-origin filter coffees on the menu. My coffee came with a card providing more details about its origin and flavour profiles. It was from Fazenda da Mata in Brazil, and with a little milk in the piccolo it had a smooth, sweet milk chocolate taste. The perfect accompaniment to my brunch.
There are a bunch of tables inside and a couple out on the pavement. No bookings are taken so you may have to wait during busy periods, but I was able to walk right up to a table with a perfect view of the brew bar. The décor, incidentally, has a rather funky 1970s vibe, from the colours to the fonts.
Juliet's Quality Foods is located at 110 Mitcham Road, London, SW17 9NG. Website. Instagram.
For 140+ more of my favourite coffee shops in London, you can also check out my London speciality coffee guide.
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