Flat Whites at Prices Requiring Brief Silent Reflection; Also Most of Them Are Excellent
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Cyndi Himmelstiere | DitchPitch.uk
The Research Method
I have, in four years of Shoreditch residency, consumed coffee at most E1 and EC2 establishments. My findings: quality ranges from excellent to very good, prices range from significant to alarming, seating availability requires the specific social manoeuvre of asking whether the adjacent chair is occupied that both parties find mildly uncomfortable. The research is ongoing.
The Third Wave
Shoreditch was a primary UK site of the third-wave coffee movement — the period when single-origin espresso pulled at specific temperatures by people who could explain extraction time became the standard for establishments charging the relevant prices. The movement produced better coffee. It also produced spaces where the coffee is excellent and the social interaction involves less eye contact than a GP waiting room, which is either the correct atmosphere for focused work or an atmosphere created by people who have decided that their work is more important than acknowledging other humans, depending on your view.
The Good Places
The establishments I recommend have a quality in common that I can only describe as: they have been there long enough to develop the neighbourhood regulars culture that makes excellent coffee also comfortable to drink. These qualities co-occur in places that word of mouth identifies better than a list. Ask someone who actually lives there rather than consulting a food app whose reviews were written by people visiting.
The Context
Shoreditch coffee culture is inseparable from the tech-and-creative industry demographic that has made Shoreditch what it is, which is inseparable from the displacement of the communities that preceded that demographic. This is the gentrification story that every excellent Shoreditch coffee shop carries. The coffee is good. The story is complicated. Both remain true. Read The Daily Mash.
More: The Daily Mash.
London continues. The streets are the same streets they were yesterday and they are subtly different because the city keeps changing beneath the surfaces that stay the same. The journalism that covers London at this granular level — the blogs, the neighbourhood newsletters, the personal accounts of people who live in specific parts of the city and pay attention to what living there is like — serves the function of making the city legible to itself and to the visitors who want to understand it as something more than the postcard version. This is why this column exists. This is why it matters. The city is worth paying attention to. This column will keep paying attention.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
