While a straight-up cafe is always a
pleasure, it's the ones that combine interests that I love to discover.
I'll never forget how much my grandmother and I used to adore a local
cafe that was inside a bakery and had a craft section, too.
Cafes with bookshops, cafes with live music, cafes in the corner of a shop... these independent, collaborative establishments go beyond a good cup and are evocative of inspiration with their unique identity and charm.
Cafes with bookshops, cafes with live music, cafes in the corner of a shop... these independent, collaborative establishments go beyond a good cup and are evocative of inspiration with their unique identity and charm.
As
it is, there are already so many cafes in London, it can be somewhat
hard to compete for the limelight, especially in a nook as thriving in
cafe culture as London's Stoke Newington but Green Room Cafe sets itself
aside by marrying floristry with a clean and large space dedicated to
the enjoyment of good food and coffee.
Wandering past the peonies, freesias and more, you'll be led into a room filled with natural light that opens up into a secluded sunlit garden, an area covered by trellis and ivy for those who prefer the shade, and a further ground for outdoor plant-perusing.
What
I like most and least about the cafe is the abundance of young stuff
who are all at once as charming in their youth as they are completely
unaware of what's beyond their nose. Call me a nit-pick, I spent more
than a decade in hospitality and grew eyes in the back of my head -
neither of which, of course, I would have acquired if it weren't for
those dreamy days of waitressing hard and spending my few pennies on the
pursuit of pleasure. And so it is, that the sometimes slow service can
be made up for by the bittersweet reminder that you're only young once.
A wonderful place for reasonably priced and delicious food, it is my lunchtime cafe of choice on Church Street before a wander in the magical Abney Park Cemetery.
Where are your favourite combo-cafes?
I'd love to find more in London!
