Coffee @ Ridley's - Dalston Lane

Good morning Dalston, meet Ridley's cafe, on Dalston Lane. Popped up almost overnight a few months ago this is one of many on the lane but it's also one of the prettiest. I have to say, I really like what they've done with the space, the handmade (I am guessing here, about 96% sure) tables an the fun ladder lights on the ceiling.

The cappuccino is nice but a bit small at £2.50, though you will be given another one if you think the one you got wasn't frothy enough - they're keen to do a good job here, that's for sure.

Taking a break from gymnastics and advantage of a brief sunny spell I was happy to check this one out. It was really quiet (only me +1) which normally means

talking to your mate feels a bit like you're on stage performing the vagina monologues. Instead, being the only customers at Ridley's was really pleasant, they were playing nice music at perfect volume (which i'm sure is monitored for the purpose, thank you guys) and were friendly without becoming your best friend, which is the other common issue when nobody else is around.

And now, for a completely unrelated (well, kind of) 'What's wrong with me?' moment, behold the bloody amazing Ridley Road market - which I discovered today after living 100 metres from it for years. Well done me, sometimes I wonder whether my glasses are really seethrough or whether they are, in fact, mounted with cement. I had no idea.

I mean, I did have an idea that it was there, I kind of knew there was a market there and I should go check it out at a certain point, but I hadn't yet and kind of forgot about it. Well, they sell lots of amazing stuff. Vegetables (odd ones), meat (lots, including hooves, heads, blubber and other things I have no idea how to approach) and fish, red, pink, blue(!!) fish for all. It looks great, it smells great and women get complimented as they buy their blue fish, bull's balls and chicken's feet.

Come to Ridley's cafe and then go to do your weekly shopping. Enough Able & Cole - get OUT of the house.

Sho Foo Doh aka Dentist - Chatsworth road

OH HOLY GUACAMOLY.


HOW I LOVE THIS PLACE.



Well - we knew it all along: Chatsworth road was always a little gem ready to spring out on us and turn into a big, fancy, inflorescence of a place, full of creative shops, cafes and restaurants to please all tastes. So, behold the explosion because it is happening now:

It was a coldish and stormy evening and I was walking down the road when - all of a sudden - a startling sight: a run down dental practice, with a big DENTIST sign, complete with phone number - black on yellow - and URGERY in green smaller letters.

Tentatively, I got closer and...

OH THANK YOU GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS, it was an okonomiyaki bar.

Okonomiyaki, for those of you who are not familiar with the term, means endless deliciousness and wonderfulness in japanese. It also means, tastiest and best.

Okono meaning tastiest and miyaki meaning best. Aside from that, it also means fantastic japanese pancake made with special flour mix poured over a mountain of cabbage and other ingredients and sprinkled with dry tuna flakes, tiny dry shrimp, seaweed and japanese wondersauces.

I am telling you: EAT ONE. All you need to do is come down here on a Thursday. Don't ask why, but it's only open then. Bring a fiver.

Oh, and these dudes are amazing.

   

Market Cafe - Broadway Market

Market Cafe, Market Cafe do I like you or not?

I certainly come here a lot.

 As uninspiring as it may be, the name is pretty accurate: Market Cafe is a café on Broadway Market. Another café in Broadway Market? Indeed, but this one is a bit different and, I have to say, was much needed. The first time I visited was when it hadn't opened yet: they were giving away free pasta tasters in the street, out of enormous metal pots. There was nothing inside yet, but I very much disliked the previous interior so nothing was still a huge improvement.

The pasta was great, the staff young and lovely and the atmosphere really festive. Thumbs up then, but there was much much more to get done before the opening day, and they could still very much fuck it up. 
Instead, they put together really nice bric-à-brac   furniture and, well, have the best windows you can ask for, they are huge and go all round. In the day it's just bright and gorgeous and in the evening it's cheerfully Hopper-esque.

The food - the food is really nice, the sides here are quite something in themselves; try the polenta or just the side salad - delicious.

The coffee is good and they can whip up an amazing whisky sour.

So why am I not sure I like it?

Well, the prices are a bit of a joke. An evening here can be a real blow to the wallet's heart and it's not like we're at the Boundary's rooftop patio, we're down the road in Broadway Market, we didn't expect a blow here.

I'm sure this  encouraged the desired fauna: why have normal Hackney when you can have Alexa Chung? True, after the first unexpected blow you know what to expect and can choose not to come here... but can you?

Market Cafe is a bit of a magnet: it's packed with cheerful people, it's pretty and fun, the tastebuds are happy... if you live around here you might just end up there whether you planned to or not.

L'Entrepôt - Dalston Lane

Route 38, can't help but love you. A little further up the road from Healthy Stuff, on Dalston Lane, just before Hackney Downs station, something just popped up out of the blue - Borough Wines's big cousin - L'Entrepôt.

I am a fan of the original wine-stop nestled in Wilton way -  I used to go there for their much acclaimed house wine refills straight from the barrel tap - the only problem is that the place is really just a booze stop, no sitting, no food, nothing.Which, for a place with such character, seemed a bit of a shame. No more! They must have noticed that too. With L'Entrepôts round the corner, Borough Wines is now free to be itself and can redirect any out-chillers there. 

L'Entrepôt does everything Borough Wines does (wine, wine, wine and tap wine), with the addition of tables and chairs to sit at, nice breakfasts in the morning, coffee, nibbles in the afternoon and some proper food in the evening. With the food, try not to look around too much: the staff eat things you are not allowed to order, things that look delicious and are not in the menu... like pasta, for example. I managed to look miserable enough about this that they gave me a sample dish, and boy it was beautiful. But I was told to keep schtum about it so don't go telling anyone, ok?

Another thing that's really stimulating here, both to work in the day and to appreciate the wine (or both together, even) is what they did with the space.  

They talk about it on their blog where there's a 'before' picture, the warehouse is narrow and long and I frankly can't remember ever seeing it there, right next to the supermarket, under the railway bridge. They painted it all white and sprinkled nice, clever touches all over - the wooden floor is made of reclaimed school gyms flooring, the bar top of wine crates, the lights of bottles, the ceiling partition of old stained windows.

 In the evening, this place is full of pretty dressed up people, dressed up properly, like grown ups and not like clapton urchins. Is this good? I don't know, but I like it so far. Try it!

Healthy Stuff

168 Dalston Lane, London E8 1NG 
website

Monday - Friday: 8am - 7pm
Saturday: 10am - 6pm
Sunday: 10am - 5pm

Cappuccino - £2
Fresh juice (big) - £3.50
Soup of the day, with bread - £4.50
Canvas bag - £2

✓ Free Wi-Fi
✓ Friendly staff
✓ Indoors seating
✓ Outdoors seating

✓ Organic ministore

 
On rainy days I take the bus to work, I sit upstairs and look out for a bit before taking my book out and forgetting all about London. The times in which I am most aware of my surroundings, therefore, are just after getting on, and just before my destination. For this reason, I have been eyeing Healthy Stuff from the top of the 38 bus for a while now, and I have been meaning to pop in for just as long. Today I did. Before I get to the inside, though, let me tell you how lovely this place looks from a bus. It's a little corner café, strikingly pretty among rather unattractive old shops and crumbly old houses. It's painted a happy shade of light blue with a thin, tall, illustration-like sign that comes out funny in pictures, and has a cast iron railing at the top, like a crown. It could just as well be called "We're SO happy to see you" so firmly it ticks the welcoming box.



Expectations are high, then, when I finally make it through the door. It's 6PM so it's quiet and I find a place to sit. There's a long table with chairs and bench in front of the window, and in the morning this must be a really lovely place to come to work, but a fellow Mac user is typing away quietly, so I choose one of the other two, smaller tables, which gives me a nice view of the counter. Benny, is working tonight, and you can immediately tell that he owns and loves the place because he never stops cleaning and tidying everything - if you look around, the place is impeccable, actually - he and Marina, I learn, opened this café a year ago, when Ella, their daughter, was born. If you go to their brilliant website, you can actually see a picture of them in front of the café that reminds me of that of my grandparents when they opened their own bar, after they built it, ages ago. It's modernly old fashioned, I really like it. 



But i digress; once inside I order a cappuccino, which comes quickly, and is delicious - the froth, in particular, is super dense and creamy.  I also order one of their fresh juices, the one that sounds most unfriendly, it's called Green and contains spinach, cucumber, lime, apple and celery. Benny makes it quickly in the juicer, brings it to me and then proceeds to dismantle it calmly, and wash every part carefully before re-assembling. Within minutes, the juicer could be sold as new on ebay, nice touch, Benny. 

Green is certainly so; it's also tall and foamy, and looks at me helpfully, oozing anti-cancer claims (claims which I don't necessarily believe, but am brainwashed into noticing). Yes, Green, you look great, but are you going to upset me once you're in my mouth? 'Cos your matey Cappuccino was pre-tttty good, y'know?





I ponder this for a quite a while, and use the time to have a look around. Healthy Stuff is not just a café, why, it also sells lots of healthy stuff! Organic fruit and veg, Ecover's everything, including nappies (not sure why this struck me), and all sorts of nice food and cupboard essentials, all mega healthy. I ask Benny, and he tells me that it's perfectly fine to purchase something that might not be in their menu to have at your table, at no extra charge. So for example, if you wanted matcha, which they sell by the box, you could buy the pot and take it to Benny and he would make you a latte. Or if you wanted an avocado and tofu combo, you could buy the two, get a plate, and eat them. I say this because I've been surprised to find cafés that don't like this, and either don't let you do it, or charge you extra for the pleasure. 






Pretty things are all around: there's a canvas bag with an illustration of the café made by Ashley Le Quere as part of the East London Mornings project; the menu is being painted on the wall by Moomintroll and there's a little Moominpappa under a line of bunting on the coffee machine; a crane eats a bowl of the soup of the day and tells you all about it.

By the time I am ready for my Green, it looks like this, so I give it a big stir and start sipping away...

Diane, if you ever come this way that fresh juice is worth a stop.

By Jove, this is good juice! The king of juices, the juice-god of mount Olympus! Thanks Benny, this is amazing, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work if I tried it at home. Besides, I would be using a masher rather than a juicer and we already know that doesn't work, see the duck pâté i tried to make with masher instead of food processor. Not good.

Bridge Café, Hackney Pearl, and Parioli - three favourites

Balzac once said that when coffee enters your body it starts a battle of ideas. So whether, like me, you prefer top class Italian espresso, or, like Special Agent Dale Cooper, you like yours long, American and black as a moonless night, you've got to know at least one place you can trust to serve you a damn good coffee so you can get those ideas in motion.

Solitude stands in a café . Sometimes I agree with Alfred Polgar, Vienna Coffeehouses wit: a cafe is 'a place where people want to be alone, but need company to do so'. Working at home can be extremely comfortable, but there's something undeniably depressing about waking up, starting to work, and finding yourself still in your nightgown at dinner time, with the lights still off and the daylight gone. So why not take it to a really quiet cafe? Perhaps the most aptly named among my favourites is the Hackney Pearl. Far from being the noisy, pirate-pissed, ghost ship of a caff you might be imagining from its name, the Hackney Pearl is really bright and clean, with plenty of tables and absolutely delicious food to give you some support if coffee alone is making you a bit twitchy.

Another rather busy, but nonetheless quiet place to sit with a laptop over a cappuccino is the upstairs room of fancily decorated Bridge Cafe in Kingsland road, near Old Street. Coming up the stairs you'll feel a bit like you're entering the den of Rhett Buttler's charming friend Belle Watling: the room is decorated with heavy gold and pink brocade, faux Louis XII furniture and leaded favrile glass lampshades sporting naked muses as stands. Customers come and go slowly, taking their time over sketchbooks and notepads, reading and hosting meetings - all rather quietly and politely. If you're peckish, you might want to try their salads, they're great food for thought.

A place to recover. 'Should dreary hypochondria's woes oppress thee, Should round thy charming limbs in too great measure thy flesh increase' (Parini), then you've been out all night looking for Esmees, ruining yourself and going mad swapping wine for coffee! You need to go to Parioli, in Lower Clapton road, and get yourself some Tortellini broth. This is a method tested and verified by many, and is the only way to completely tame a killer hangover and harness it into cooperation towards creative output. The place is a narrow room with a floor to ceiling bookcase stocked with any mysterious Italian produce you could dreamof, from squid ink and grated salmon roe, to the elusive and utterly delicious Stracchino cheese. Come here early, get the window table and relax for you won't be going anywhere for hours, and the staff know it. This is a place to bring a friend and discuss ideas together at length: if you order a large cappuccino, it'll be the size of your head.