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.
No comments:
Post a Comment