Lost London coffe shops
Bean and gone
There have been endless items about the resurgence of the coffee bar. The growth, particularly in the City and points east, has been much trumpeted. Yet, my own feeling is that the quality of coffee in London is very variable - either some pissy soup in a tureen or some horribly burnt, bitter liquid in an espresso cup. Also, these places seem to rely on pre-prepared sandwiches that invariably run out by mid-afternoon.
RIP Cafe Mozart
So. I feel saddened when a coffee bar or sandwich bar that has been part of my snacking life disappears. Recently, I went to Swains Lane in Highgate to Cafe Mozart, a lonstanding Middle European-inspired coffee bar and restaurant, only to discover it was no more and had been incorporated into its newly expanded next door neighbour, Kalendar, and had ceased to be Viennese cakes and brown wood and had become anonymous minimalist modern.
Mozart always felt to me to be a staging post for the Bohemian bourgeoisie of Kentish Town and Highgate. It was part of local life. The interior was a burnished brown wood with Spartan wooden chairs and the food was a pleasing mixture of salad culture and Middle Europe. The cappuccino was good. There was a pleasing conviviality about the place, but alas, no more. It's replacement isn't awful, just very ho-hum and bereft of the timeless, fusty grace that made Mozart such a pleasing renezvous.
A taste of bitter love
On the way to work, I go through the Hackney Road, which connects Shoreditch with Hackney. This is a bleak road that consists of seemingly nothing other than wholesalers: furniture, clothes, office equipment, bags and shoes that could best be described as utilitarian. To add some warmth, there appeared a coffe bar with the delightful name: A taste of bitter love. I believe it is the title of an Aretha Franklin song.
Anyway, this tiny, kiosk-like coffe bar served a very decent coffee and a nice, select mix of home-made sandwiches. I had a particularly nice goat's curd, courgette and pea shoots roll one, and although I could not claim to be a regular customer, it was an island of conviviality in a rather austere setting. Now it appears to have closed down and something small-scale and lovely has died.
The cafe with no name
Whenever I am in Islington and want something reasonably cheap and filling, I have a sandwich at a cafe whose name I never knew on the corner of Florence Street. It was bright and airy, furnished with simple, modern wood chairs and tables lookingout on to Upper Street. The waitresses were a mix of charming South East Asian and Eastern European women and they serveda fine baguette. Passing there the other day it seemed to have close, so the colonisation of Upper Street by the chains is nearing completion.
Keep London-RIP informed if your favourite local coffee bar anywhere in London has closed and you would like it acknowledged, appreciated and celebrated.
