The best coffee shops in London

Catalyst is a serene and stripped-back Scandi-style drop-in with all-day appeal. Coffee-wise, the owners know their stuff, there’s a Diedrich roaster in the basement and the place is stuffed with barista gadgets. There’s some great food too (mostly veggie savouries, cakes and brunch classics), with regular pop-up dinners from the likes of Time Out’s hot chef Sertaç Dirik, Max from Max’s Sandwich Shop and Sirichai Kularbwong from Singburi. What’s more, Catalyst closes late on Fridays, with a fair choice of cocktails, craft beers and wines.

A terribly chic Fitzrovia outpost for this south east Asian coffee chain which has sites in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Come here to bask in the light wood interior and soak up some serious Japanese design. Grab a soothing matcha latte in the winter, and their outlandish iced cappuccino in the summer. Their kashi – a moreish cube of baked custard – makes for the perfect chaser. 

A true icon of London, this historic Soho coffee shop was established in 1949 by Lou and Caterina Polledri, and quickly became a social hub for the Italian community in London. It remains popular with everyone from local media workers to vintage enthusiasts and gaggles of mods on scooters, and despite several upgrades to the decor, much of the original fixtures still remain, from the red and white formica to the Gaggia espresso machine and the flooring. Night owls will be impressed too, as it stays open until 3am. 

You’ll find the almost excessively hip and 1970s-ish retro feeling Batch Baby on the ground floor of Haggerston community space the Rose Lipman Building. Their batch coffee (pour over coffee made with help from a machine) is some of the best priced in town, and their toasties verge on the legendary. Check our their regular ‘cupping’ sessions, where you’ll get to taste coffee from around the world, with a little bit of booze thrown into the event after the grounds have settled. 

Enduringly popular for its unhurried atmosphere and lovely service Allpress Espresso (aka the Redchurch Espresso Bar) also makes terrific coffee – from textbook espresso-based brews to various filter concoctions. Outstanding baked goods (try the pistachio croissant) add to the all-round appeal of this winning corner spot, making it a fixture of the Shoreditch scene. The main Allpress roastery is now housed in a big café complex spread over two floors in Dalston.

With five outlets across the City of London, Rosslyn Coffee offers a friendly face in the often souless financial district. The founders come from Australia and Ireland, and you can feel both nations present in the sheer hospitality of their five coffee shops. Specialty coffee with charm, is their thing. If you’re craving a cortado before your highpowered buisness conflab, Rosslyn is the place to go. 

Almost painfully chic, a visit to Lodestar Coffee is like stepping into a listing on The Modern House. Not only do they stocking expertly curated coffee from some of the world’s greatest – and nichest – roasteries, but operate as a neighbourhood cafe with regular cupping events (that’s coffee tasting to the less caffeine-fluent). Check out their regular ‘night cafe’ sessions, where they’re open late into the evening and laptops are, mercifully, banned. 

A stroll down the ever-quaint Stoke Newington Church Street is made infinitely better with a stop off at 13th Floor Coffee. Find them in their permanent pitch in a converted horse box outside St Mary’s Church, where they serve a brisk but potent menu of specialty coffee and baked treats. It's run by the team people who put on End of The Road music festival (and the name is a reference to cult Texan psych band the 13th Floor Elevators), so a coffee here also comes with serious indie cred. There's another, bigger site with sit-in options nearby, at Christ Church Highbury.

Capacity doesn’t make it far into double digits at this small but perfectly formed shrine to straight caffeine. Choice may be limited too (artisan coffees from Caravan, teas, sandwiches, cakes and some brunch staples), but we love Bloomsbury’s Espresso Room, especially when we can sit outside in fine weather. Smiling staff show off their technical skills in the most modest way possible.

Monmouth is the grandmama of high-class coffee in London, and its pitch at the southern end of Borough Market is always heaving. There’s nothing flashy or trendy about its offer, but everything screams quality – from the artisan authenticity of the food (breads, pastries etc) to the enthusiasm of the expertly trained staff. Espresso and its derivatives are properly made, but brewed coffee (from the company’s outstanding range) is the real star. Also try Monmouth’s original shop in Covent Garden and its Bermondsey offshoot.

Unassumingly nestled in the heart of Soho, Algerian Coffee Stores has traded from its Old Compton Street site for well over a century and is, remarkably, still using their original wooden counter, shelving and display cases. Not just a coffee shop, but an institution, their take-away option is the best coffee deal in central London: £1.20 for espresso, £1.50 for a double shot, and £2 for a cappuccino,

A major hit with office workers around Silicon Roundabout, Kiwi-owned Ozone made a big deal of its ‘sustainable whole-cycle cooking’ from the very start and it’s become more serious with time. We also like its coffee: brewed, slow-brewed or single-origin. Also check the brew bar for more specialist sips. Ozone’s popularity has risen stratospherically – it’s crowded upstairs, but easier downstairs. There are two other locations in the city (Ludgate Hill and Creechurch Lane), as well as a London Fields outpost.

The HQ for Dark Arts – London’s premiere heavy metal-adjacent coffee brand – can be found down a Homerton side street. As well as being home to all the big, burly equipment that they use to roast their beans, it’s also a take-out espresso bar that’s open throughout the week, delivering shots of coffee so powerful that they could raise Lemmy from the dead. You can buy some bags of beans to take home, too. 

The South Bermondsey branch of Crol and Co occupies a sweet corner spot that was once a betting shop. Locally roasted beans come alongside toasties, crossiants, and their crowning glory; a mocha made with melted Belgian dark chocolate chips. There are two other branches nearby, in London Bridge and on Bermondsey Street.

A friendly coffee roasters and café in Leyton, where you can score a serious flat white as well as grabbing a bag of Perky Blenders own beans to take home. Food comes from The Good Bagel, who are dishing up challah subs and babka as well as their titular bagels. Seek out other Perky Blenders spots in Walthamstow, Stoke Newington and Leytonstone. 

Perpetually buzzy, Climpson’s has the same qualities as their excellent flat whites. Clamber through the weekend crowds on Broadway Market to score a cute little cuppa that you can stroll through London Fields with. It’s the perfect accessory for Saturday afternoons and Monday mornings. 

Occupying a former men’s pissoir, aromas of roast arabica and scented candles waft up from the subterranean cavern, which still boasts the original Victorian urinals (now used for seating). Brazilian coffee is roasted by Saint Espresso and there are made-to-order sandwiches, hot snacks, and decidedly decent cakes too. Be warned – the place is tiny, and it’s regularly rammed. 

Kaffeine remains incredibly popular with local office workers, who seem to crowd in at every hour of the day and make lunchtime a crush. They can’t be here for the seating: wooden bench-type at tables either high or low. Or for the minimalist decor. It’s the coffee and the food and the buzz. And there certainly is buzz aplenty, especially when the place is crowded. You’ll find much to swoon over in the food, which comes up from the basement kitchen constantly as tray after tray sells out.

Roasting Plant is a unique experience, with coffee beans whizzing over your head through the tubes on the ceilings. It offers a custom encounter with their just-roasted technology using the Javabot - an in-store roasting and brewing system that freshly roasts coffee in every Roasting Plant café. They use micro-batches to prepare each cup to order; and allow you to choose your coffee beans from Jamaica to Peru, according to personal taste. Definitely try their bold house blend with their perfectly thin and chewy choc-chip cookie. As well as London Bridge, there are branches on The Strand and by Monument.

When it comes to coffee, Hagen knows what’s up. Their Danish coffee is delish and really wakes you up. Step into any one of the many cosy Hagen stores in London, including this Chelsea fave. Don’t forget to try their gluten-free sweet treats, especially the brownie which pairs perfectly with a flat white. But a heads up, they are pretty popular, so prepare to face the crowds.

Every London borough now seems fully caffeinated with sustainable, single-origin beans and cult blends, so any local contender needs to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Chief Coffee goes with... pinball machines. Load up on caffeine and cakes in the ground-floor café, then take that chemical high downstairs to the subterranean lounge and fiddle about on old-school games such as Monster Bash or Cactus Canyon.

Coffee, craftsmanship and community come together at Lumberjack, a dinky Camberwell café stuffed full of hand-printed tea towels, ceramic mugs and craft furniture. Naturally, this ethos extends to the coffee and tea, while the food is honest-to-goodness artisan stuff: soups, sharing boards, salads, and fancy cakes. Local parents, freelancers and art students love the vibe.

A lovely little locals spot with not only great brews for take-away and drinking in, but deli goods, bread, cake and fancy sarnies. Come for the flat whites, stay for the toasted croissant stuffed with goat cheese, fig and rocket, or the many neighbourhood pooches who are welcomed with open arms and treats for the goodest boys. 

Properly passionate about coffee, this cheery corner café in Brixton is the real deal with its single-estate beans and global guests brewed up with just the right amount of obsession. Big windows let in lots of light, while the back room has all the hipster trimmings (bare bricks, bare light bulbs and so on). Over-the-counter food includes brioche buns stuffed with bacon and brie, quiches, pastries and gluten-free cakes.

Peckham’s coffee roastery started in 2014 but soon opened its doors to enthusiastic coffee-loving locals who still drop by for that freshly roasted espresso experience, interesting filter brews and seasonal, single-origin beans. Artisan hot chocolate and teas from Good & Proper are also on offer, but why pick anything else when the coffee’s this good? Old Spike has a social conscience too, training and employing homeless people across its business.