It's not a coffee house, it's a pub – but if they called it 'The Old Pub', it would just sound daft. But what the Old Coffee House lacks in coffee it makes up for in Assorted Pub Crafts; vintage ads on mirrors, copper kettles and amateur taxidermy pieces adorn every available wall space, and a fire crackles away in the corner, while two inoffensively sized screens broadcast sport, thankfully silently on our visit. It has an unfussy proper-pubness to it, even if a more cynical eye might put the 'proper' in quotes.
Fortunately, the craft beer on tap from Leyton microbrewery Brodie's completes the effect – it's excellent. What might be a slightly dingier boozer elsewhere in town absorbs vital Soho energy from Soho and becomes brilliant, as old geezers, creative types and tourists (and probably at least one old creative tourist geezer) happily intermingle.