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London’s best cafés

Coffee, cake and a spot of lunch - these are the capital caffs that we actually rate

Leonie Cooper
Edited by
Leonie Cooper
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London, obviously, has a great many cafés, but how to choose? We've got normal ones and really posh ones. Massive ones and tiny ones. Ones with loads of cake, and ones with loads of sandwiches. All of them, thankfully, with coffee and tea. This list is our attempt to group together the best ones. Want to know the difference between this list and our ranking of London’s best coffee shops? Well at these spots you can get eggs (fried, poached or scrambled) and a sit-down meal with your flat white. 

Recommended: London's best breakfasts.

London's best cafés

Brunswick East
  • Restaurants
  • Coffeeshops
  • Dalston

In the courtyard of Dalston’s creative hub, this Aussie-owned gem mixes cosy industrial/studio vibes with a serious attitude to coffee. House beans are sourced from Alchemy, guest names appear on rotation and there’s an equally alluring Antipodean-style menu, plus there are ceramic exhibits and weekend brunch/yoga sessions for the wholesome extroverts. There's also a bakehouse branch in Hackney Downs, which specialises in cake, patisserie and sourdoughs.

  • Shopping
  • Peckham

Ron’s – which occupies the front unit of Holdron’s Arcade on Peckham’s Rye Lane – is an all vegan café which will serve you up the best flat white in the area. It’s a cosy space but it’s full of love, and the owners are dead serious about the coffee, which is consistently delicious. Food-wise, everything is plant-based – including the patisserie – though the crisp-then-soft majesty of their cinnamon roll will quiet any and all skeptics.

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  • Restaurants
  • British
  • Victoria Park

The super scenic Pavilion is a cut-above. Grab a coffee to accompany you on a stroll around Vicky Park, or linger on nearby benches with Sri Lankan-inspired brunch and breakfast items. Dahl with roti is always a good choice, but if you're after something a little stickier, then the cheese and kimchi toastie is the one for you. Extra napkins at the ready.

 

Juliet's Quality Foods
  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Tooting
  • price 1 of 4

Juliet's Quality Foods is a gem. Trendy breakfast dishes are the name of the game, like the fancy eggs benedict, made with sourdough and topped with buttery smoked eel. Just brilliant. 

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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Balham

The most achingly fashionable of Balham’s breakfast and brunch spots, Milk is chic rather than cute. Come for a just coffee from the extremely good-looking espresso machine, or settle in for french toast made with housemade brioche, strawberries, and tonka chantilly cream. Pancakes too are a draw, with macerated red plums, blackcurrant cheesecake, and cocoa honey tuille flavours.  

  • Restaurants
  • Coffeeshops
  • Finsbury Park

This female-owned Finsbury Park cafe is dog and kid-friendly, so the perfect place to pile into after a stomp in the park with your assorted animals and children. Try the masala potatoes for brunch, or a stuffed hummus and kimchi ciabatta. Monthly communal supper clubs on long, family-style tables are also fun and often vegan-friendly.

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  • Restaurants
  • Italian
  • Clapton
  • price 2 of 4

Stroll into this Italian-ish Hackney restaurant in the daytime, and it's like walking into a Wes Anderson movie; all wood-panelled walls, masterfully tiled flooring and 1960s posters for Italian vermouth brands. A former greasy spoon, Leo’s retains shades of classic caff-ery, like E Pellicci’s as stage managed by Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud. Eat amaretti and sip on cappuccino from vintage Duralex cups and saucers while feeling as sophisticated as Sophia Loren.

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Leonie Cooper
Food and Drink Editor, Time Out London
  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Green Lanes

The Dusty Knuckle is one of those places that actually deserves the hype it gets, and the Haringey version is thankfully a little more low-key then its older brother in Dalston (though you’ll still find queues of tote bag-bracing hipsters come Sunday). The rotating sandwich menu is always great, but the pro tip is to go on a Saturday for the egg chilli cheese; a crispy, salty, spicy mess of a sandwich with a runny yolk, coriander and green chillies, sandwiched between two doorstop slices of focaccia. For something sweet, try the cardamom bun and the feta and honey swirl. The vibes inside are nice and chaotic (no wifi), the staff are all delightful, and there’s pizza on the weekends.

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Ella Doyle
Guides Editor
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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Walthamstow

A sweet little sourdough bakery and artisan coffee shop in Walthamstow's Grade II listed Central Parade. Grab a loaf and settle in for lunch of the house toastie with tomato relish, cheddar and red leicester, or soup, wraps and salads. Then wash it down with a Mozzo coffee. 

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Restaurants
  • London Fields
  • Recommended

E5 Bakehouse has come a long way since 2010 when founder Ben MckInnon cobbled together his first oven from carpenter’s offcuts under a Hackney railway arch. Its primary archway home these days is in E8, a stone’s throw from London Fields. Indoors it’s quietly buzzy from dawn to dusk with informal tables of drinkers and diners feasting on delicious vegetable-forward lunches, very good coffee and wine, and of course the legendary E5 loaves, buns and cakes. 

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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Covent Garden

A social enterprise cafe, Fair Shot is a registered UK charity and works with young adults with learning disabilities and autism. They also make a mean cup of coffee, with small-batch beans from Curious Roo, and offer sit-down sarnies and soups if you're looking for a more substantial feed. 

 

Ace Café
  • Things to do
  • Event spaces
  • Wembley

This roadside café been through some changes over the years since it first opened in 1938 – being re-built after a World War II bomb raid, closing down and re-opening again years later – but it has stayed true to its biker roots. The space holds regular bike and classic car events, catering to motor heads from all over. Caff-style breakfasts come with eggs, bacon and the sweet smell of petrol. 

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  • Restaurants
  • Coffeeshops
  • London Bridge

Much of the emphasis is on the restaurant and cocktail bar, but Grind’s dedicated espresso bar is a magnet for London Bridge's caffeine heads. Slip in for weekday breakfast or weekend brunch, pump up your afternoon or enjoy a post-work warm-down over a long black, a flat white or a latte (made from certified organic beans). Grind also does its bit for the environment by using compostable, plastic-free coffee pods. There are also branches in Covent Garden, Liverpool Street and Greenwich. 

This pint-sized cafe on Askew Road just feels crisp. Not burnt to a crisp, as the name suggests, but calm. Minimal interiors let the truly innovative menu shine through. You won’t find bog-standard avo toast here – instead you’ll get anything from salt beef and sauerkraut croque madames to a merguez sausage and fried egg sloppy breakfast bun. Burnt imports its beans from east London favourites Climpson & Sons, and pastries from the Dusty Knuckle. And if you’re having such a lovely time that you want to stay the whole night long, you’re in luck. Burnt opens to serve up small-plate dinners Thursdays and Friday, and occasionally hosts series of themed supper clubs.

Marina Rabin
Contributing writer
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  • Restaurants
  • Coffeeshops
  • Nine Elms
  • price 1 of 4

Formerly a pop-up espresso bar in a converted taxi, this now-permanent café by the Thames has a coffee roaster in its dining area constantly pumping out beans. The menu offers much more than java, though – try the rose petal beetroot latte if you fancy something both healthy and unapologetically pretty. There’s a proper brunch menu, too.

Being slightly out of the way affords this spot on the Hammersmith riverside a breezy two floors and a courtyard, where buckets of natural light ripple through some very tasteful crittall-style windows. Food here is as important as the coffee (which comes from Ozone). The ever-rotating, totally seasonal menu ranges from kimchi-fried rice to black rice porridge with miso sauce. This is a spot where you can easily whittle away a few hours, just be warned: you’ll be surrounded by what sometimes feels like every labrador and their yoga pants-clad owner in west London.

Marina Rabin
Contributing writer
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Karaway Stratford
  • Restaurants
  • Bakeries
  • Stratford
  • price 1 of 4

A legend on Borough Market and beyond, family-run Karaway Bakery is now selling its incredible award-winning rye breads and Eastern European cakes in a tiny café tucked away in Westfield Stratford. The choice is bewildering, but sampling is encouraged and it’s all backed up by decent coffee and sandwiches.

Ole & Steen
  • Restaurants
  • Bakeries
  • St James’s

London’s unwaning love affair with all things Scandi continues with Danish chain Ole & Steen's gradual takeover of London. As well as the initial branch in Covent Garden, you'll find these brooding coffee and cake spots as far afield as Canary Wharf, Chiswick and Hampstead. Inside, it’s super-slick and definitely not hygge, although the food is the star: wonderfully dark chocolate swirls, apple pie, savoury rolls and – best of all – wickedly seductive cinnamon slices.

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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Highbury
  • price 1 of 4

It’s all about tea and cake at Highness Café, a homely spot in Highbury with mismatched wooden tables and a menu that’s written on a chalkboard above the counter. Expect the likes of thick peanut-butter brownies, iced blood-orange cakes and plump sultana scones.

  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Battersea

As effortlessly chilled as they come, Birdhouse is the Clapham coffee bar of your dreams – everything is intended to soothe, staff are lovely, the sandwiches are great and the warm banana bread is nigh-on irresistible. Partnered with a perfect espresso, it’s a guaranteed cure for those rainy-day blues.

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Antipode
  • Restaurants
  • Coffeeshops
  • Hammersmith

On a mission to bring some Melbourne magic to the streets of Hammersmith, this cool Aussie café brews up some terrific stuff. It uses Square Mile’s Red Brick beans for espresso and serves inventive brunch-style food – its kimchi-and-cheddar toastie is a best-seller. Just add some ace craft beers and natural wines.

Well Street Kitchen
  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Homerton
  • price 1 of 4

This super-homey café in Hackney is popular with locals, and for good reason: the food is delicious and the staff are lovely. You’ll find café classics like smashed avocado on the menu, but the specials board is where it’s at: you can’t go past the never-fail soup of the day.

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Bühler & Co
  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Walthamstow
  • price 2 of 4

A serene Antipodean hangout (with some Scandi-chic add-ons), Bühler & Co is a brunch beacon for the baby-toting denizens of Walthamstow and a popular stop-off for coffee too. Good provenance also abounds across the sodas, booze and excellent veggie/vegan menu – welcome to the wholesome ‘good life’.

  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • West Hampstead

A lovely neighbourhood café housed within West Hampstead’s Grade II-listed St James Church, the Sanctuary is now part of a community hub that includes a post office, gift shop and debt-advice centre. Coffee and cakes are all bang on the money. Note: on Sundays, the church is used as a church.

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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Covent Garden

Notes has been here since 2011, peddling its house-roasted single-estate coffees to an eager crowd who pile in to the attractive room for excellent caffeine fixes backed by pastries, salads, charcuterie and Euro-style small plates. With Trafalgar Square just a couple of minutes away, Notes is well worth bookmarking.

  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Portobello Road
  • price 1 of 4

A tiny eccentrically decorated place with a total commitment to quality across the board, Lowry & Baker on Portobello Road is a local godsend. Food is served on a delightful jumble of unmatched crockery, but the perfectly brewed coffee – with beans from Monmouth – comes in well-warmed white cups.

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Boys ’n’ Berry
  • Restaurants
  • Global
  • Fulham
  • price 1 of 4

Fulham’s chattering classes have a solid HQ in the shape of Boys ’n’ Berry – a bang-on-trend café focusing on wholesome food and coffee, with plenty of cake on the side. It specialises in double-shot organic brews (from espressos upwards) with matcha lattes and almond milk.

  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Archway

From the quirky décor to the massive windows giving a full view of the Archway scene, this unpretentious family-owned spot is perfect for a leisurely catch up. There’s just one blend of coffee on offer, but it’s decent enough – especially with back-up from cooked breakfasts, sandwiches, salads and home-baked cakes.

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  • Restaurants
  • Cafés
  • Portobello Road
  • price 1 of 4

If the very idea of ‘healthy eating in Notting Hill’ fills you with dread, fear not: this branch of the cute café mini-chain from titular Aussie-born ‘farm girl’ Rose Mann is a little ripper. Colourful interiors and non-stop sunny service are matched by a healthy menu bursting with vibrant, zingy ingredients. Coffee and cake is a bit different too. 

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