A Year in Leaps: 2016

Each year, as part of my year-in-review top five lists, I like to look back on some of the most memorable places I travelled to this year and, because I enjoy taking silly leaping photos in new places, picking out my favourite five leaps of the year is a fun way to do this. Alas, there were a few particularly memorable trips this year during which, for various reasons, I didn't get the chance to take a leaping photo; most notably, my recent holiday in Reykjavik, where a photo with the Northern Lights in the background would have entailed a 12-second levitation. Even in a leap year, I wasn't quite up to the challenge.

Bex's Food and Drink Awards: 2016 Edition

For the past few years, I have kicked off my series of end-of-year round-ups with a selection of my London food and drink favourites. But as I have spent a fair amount of time travelling this year, I thought it was high time for a revamp. I've kept the same categories as before — best coffee, brunch, street food, restaurant and cocktail — but as well as including my pick for London of the new-to-me places, I've also included an international category so I can highlight some of my travel food and drink favourites. 

For the coffee category, it was too hard to narrow down my choices to just two, so I included one for London and the UK, one for the US and one for rest-of-world. I've linked my reviews for each winner and runner-up, so click on through to find out more.

1. Best coffee shop

United Kingdom
Origin (London)
I had my best pourover of 2016 at Origin's Charlotte Street café in Shoreditch back in March and I was even more pleased when they opened a coffee bar at the British Library, near my King's Cross office, in September. You can read more of my London coffee shop reviews here.

Runners-up: Lundenwic (London — CLOSED) and Society Café (Oxford).

United States
Supercrown (Brooklyn, NY) (CLOSED)

Although I only made two trips to the US this year — one to Portland, Oregon, and Washington, DC, in February and another to New York in October — I managed to pack in visits to 32 new coffee shops. It was really hard to pick just one, but Bushwick's Supercrown with its excellent and beautifully packaged house-roast beans, immaculately brewed pourovers and relaxed ambiance won me over. See also: more of my New York coffee adventures, my Portland coffee guide, and my DC coffee guide.

Runners-up: Coava (Portland, OR) and The Coffee Bar (Washington, DC)

Rest-of-world
Café Pascal (Stockholm, Sweden)

Vietnam, Paris, Naples and Reykjavik all surprised and delighted me with their coffee scenes this year, but it was Stockholm's Café Pascal that really stood out for me thanks to its excellent (Koppi) pourovers, fab brunch and casual but fun neighbourhood vibe.

Runners-up: Coutume (Paris, France) and The Workshop (Saigon, Vietnam)


2. Best brunch spot

London
Friends of Ours (Hoxton)

Friends of Ours is the kind of neighbourhood brunch spot that every neighbourhood needs. Plus, they serve brunch on weekdays; what's not to like?

Runner-up: The Good Egg

Rest-of-world
Jack's Wife Freda (New York, NY)

Technically, I went to the Soho branch of Jack's Wife Freda for breakfast not brunch, but that made it much easier to secure a table and I would have happily enjoyed my rosewater waffles with a side of duck bacon for brunch (or dinner, for that matter).

Runner-up: Kaffihús Vesturbæjar (Reykjavik, Iceland)


3. Best street food

London
Mercato Metropolitano (Elephant & Castle)

A varied selection of street food — including plenty from some great gourmet Italian producers — is available at the large and bustling Mercato Metropolitan market that opened this summer in Elephant & Castle. There's also a pop-up cinema and an Italian deli.

Rest-of-world
XO Tours (Saigon, Vietnam)


I could have included almost any of the street-food meals and dishes I ate in Vietnam, so I'm cheating a little bit by including XO Tours' street food tour of Saigon by motorbike. I ate so much great food that night, including many dishes I wouldn't have known to order (and some that I might have been too squeamish to order) and although expensive, it was great fun and a great way to see the city.

Runner-up: Di Matteo (Naples, Italy)


4. Best restaurant

London
Padella (London Bridge)

Padella serves quite possibly the best pasta in London at very reasonable prices. It's well worth the queue outside the new Borough Market restaurant — go early if possible.

Runner-up: Som Saa

Rest-of-world
Cull & Pistol (New York, NY)


We had an epic lobster and seafood feast at Cull & Pistol in New York's Chelsea Market. It gets very busy at the weekends but the petite restaurant is worth waiting for.

Runner-up: Pubologi (Stockholm, Sweden) (CLOSED)


5. Best cocktail

London
'Rosa Verde' at The Beautiful Pizza Boy (Peckham) (CLOSED)

I'd been waiting quite some time for Pedler's little sister (brother?), The Beautiful Pizza Boy to open up, but the pizza and the cocktails at the modern-Neapolitan restaurant on Bellenden Road are excellent. The Rosa Verde cocktail (Buffalo Trace, rose vermouth, pistachio orgeat and rose petals, with a Campari powder rub) looked great and tasted better.

Rest-of-world
'PBJ on Wholegrain' at Tweed (Stockholm, Sweden)

When I spotted the 'PBJ on Wholegrain' on the menu at Tweed in Stockholm, I only asked the waiter to tell me more because I thought it sounded absurd, and yet by the end of his description, I was sold, and it was easily my most memorable cocktail of the year — in a good way, of course. It involves whiskey blended with peanut butter using a special machine, and is smooth, sharp, sweet and fruity.

Runner-up: 'The Clover Club' at The Clover Club (Brooklyn, NY)

Where were your favourite new coffee shops, cocktail bars and restaurants this year? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

"It's Another Day of Sun" — La La Land Review

Despite the great acclaim it has been getting, I wanted to dislike Damien Chazelle's latest film La La Land. I am not, I should note, a great fan of musicals and the opening scene in which an epic traffic jam turns into an upbeat spectacle as drivers clad in colourful clothes leap out of their cars and sing and dance as they celebrate another day of sun in Los Angeles. Suffice to say that it grated.

Image ©La La Land

The Caffeine Chronicles: Coffee Island

I happened upon the first London branch of Greek specialty coffee mega-chain Coffee Island about a month ago. I might have walked past the rather unassuming storefront on Upper St Martin's Lane but I remembered the name from a London's Best Coffee news post and made a note to return. I say that the storefront is unassuming from afar and yet up close, it harbours a wealth of paraphernalia to delight the specialty coffee lover, from grinders and Chemexes, to coffee magazines and single-origin beans.

It was early afternoon on a Sunday when I finally visited Coffee Island and the café was bustling. After admiring all of the merchandise — and there are more shelving units by the front window that house coffee beans, coffee-making kit, mugs and cups, and plenty more. 

On the wall by the door is the extensive coffee menu. Espresso-based drinks are available with a house blend or a 'Microfarm' single-origin guest for 30p more (yesterday, it was an Ethiopian Sidama). At the brew bar, hand-brewed filter coffees are available brewed through the V60, Aeropress, Chemex or Syphon, with one of five single-origin varieties. There's also a batch-brew filter and an ibrik on the menu.

The large central coffee island ("we're not very original with our names," one of the baristas quipped) is right in front of the door, with a handful of small and longer tables at the back, and several more on the mezzanine level. I ordered a pourover and asked for a coffee recommendation. 

After discussing my coffee tastes briefly, the barista asked if I was in the mood for a funky Ethiopian and I replied in the affirmative; the result was a fruity Yirgacheffe, which he recommended brewed through the V60 (£2.60). Oddly, given that it wasn't that busy, he seemed to try to down-sell me to the batch brew, but I declined; perhaps he was just trying to make sure I knew all of the options. I also ordered a slice of banana bread (£3) from the tempting array of cakes and sweet treats sitting on the counter. There were also various different sandwiches, but I'd already eaten lunch.

I took a seat at one of the tables at the back of the café where I could watch the baristas at work at the brew bar and on the espresso machine. Before long, the coffee arrived and I was impressed with how well the citrus notes of the Yirgacheffe came through in the V60 brew; it was a very well prepared cup of coffee. KeepCup fans will be pleased to note that the coffees are served in the company's glass cups. I was more interested in the plate on which the — delicious — banana bread was served.

With branches of Timberyard and Department of Coffee & Social Affairs within a two-minute walk, Coffee Island has some fairly stiff local competition, but it's a nice addition to the Seven Dials neighbourhood. If you're in need of some coffee beans, their Microfarm retail bags, which cost between about £6 and £8, are very reasonably priced, and they will grind them for you in the grindery if that's what you need.

Coffee Island. 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London, WC2H 9NY (Tube: Leicester Square). Website. Instagram.

How To Spend a Winter City Break in Reykjavik

I spent four days in Reykjavik and for me, it was about the right amount of time in the city in the winter. I was really busy at work before my trip and didn't have time to do as much research as usual, so I thought I would put together a short guide with some of my tips and recommendations for things to do and places to eat, drink and shop. I plan to go back to Iceland in the summertime to see more of the country, but I loved my short winter city break.

Reykjavik Specialty Coffee Guide

With a population of just 120,000, Reykjavik is one of the smallest capital cities in Europe — it's roughly the same size as Cambridge, UK, to give you some idea. But this doesn't mean that the city lacks a healthy coffee scene — coffee is very much in order on those cold, dark winter days. Coffee and cakes, like most other things in Reykjavik, are expensive, which meant that I could generally only try one type of coffee in each café. Here are some of the coffee shops I visited during my short stay.

Reykjavik III: Something Old, Something Blue

Reykjavik is a destination that rewards the organised and one of the activities that you need to book in advance of your stay is a trip to the Blue Lagoon, the beautiful geothermal spa located in an outstanding area of natural beauty in the middle of a lava field. The Blue Lagoon is a) expensive, b) busy and c) very touristy and yet, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my trip.