Dose Espresso was the first cafe that we visited in Clerkenwell. We were exploring the Barbican while apartment hunting and needed a coffee to help brace us for the steep local property prices. It was early days in London for us so I was pretty impressed when we bumped into two Sloan Rangers in mock riding gear. I thought to myself, this is a haven of modern classiness in a sea of grungy hipsters. In the year or so since then, Dose has continued to impress as a clean, efficient and modern cafe. City bankers mix easily with Farringdon web designers and Clerkenwell architects.

The seating, architecture and vibe are welcoming, but not too welcoming. The staff aren’t quite “too cool for school” but somehow the whole layout does make you accutely aware that you are somewhere that knows that it’s “cool”.

Coffee

Dose Espresso do a beautiful coffee. The baristas are great and we’ve had consistently smooth coffee at Dose. They are using Square Mile beans which is always a good sign of an even, rounded and consistent espresso. I’ve never had one of those heart stoppingly great coffees at Dose. A coffee at Dose is a bit like a high-end VW or a mid range Audi. There’s never anything to complain about, but somehow you never feel a real personality or heart.

The milk is smooth and very well made. Dose do so of the best microfoam in London so the mouthfeel is excellent. Most reviewers have found that the coffee is first rate. James and the team seem to subscribe to the crema heavy, velvet microfoam and gently poured school of modern coffee. So I’d recommend a visit to Dose to anyone that wants to experience contemporary flat whites, cappuccinos and lattes at their best.

Staff

The crew are welcoming, but not over friendly. Unlike Department of Coffee or Flat White the staff at Dose don’t seem to be having a great time, so they’re not going to lift your mood for you. But they’re nice enough. The owner James Philips is a Kiwi who’s worked in Sydney and started off as a banker before moving into coffee. The staff are professional and efficient, which is perfect for a weekday cafe. We’ve had the occasional hung-over barista syndrome on Saturdays, where the barista had turned off the music and was glaring at customers from behind sunglasses. But you can handle that because it’s all part of the experience.

Atmosphere

The current Dose location is larger than their old location. There is now bench seating for half a dozen people and two or three small tables. It’s better than the old location but it’s still too small to be able to linger on the weekend or to guarantee a seat for a client meeting.

Like Taylor Street Baristas, Espresso Room or Nude Soho this is really a weekday cafe that just happens to be open on the weekend. It’s set up for takeaway, a quick bite to eat or a casual coffee meeting. For these purposes it’s excellent, but don’t go to a weekday cafe expecting to sit on Sunday for hours and read the paper.

Dose is one of the early adopters of the Google StreetView Inside programme so you can use Google Maps to look around the cafe and decide for yourself what you think of it.

Overall, I’d rate Dose as a top ten, solidly delivered experience. If you work in the area then you must check it out and it’s worth putting on your list of places to visit in the Inner East. Dose is part of the Disloyalty Card and every coffee aficionado in London owes themselves a visit.

Flat White in Soho started in 2005 before the flat white was widely available in the UK. It was the original antipodean cafe in London and therefore the first place that I went when we landed in London after living in Colorado for a ski season.

I vividly remember the feeling of sitting in Flat White in Soho on a grey London day. Homesick for the fist time and hearing the first New Zealand accents that I’d heard in months. Suddenly I understood China Town in San Francisco, the Jewish Quarter in Paris or the British expat bars in Asia. When we are a long way from home, we take some comfort in familiar accents, customs and foods. When I travel I’ve always studiously avoided the expat ghettos and sought out local experiences. So Flat White was the first time that I’d felt the comfort of a home away from home. I wasn’t sure whether to cringe at the Flight of the Conchords accent or luxuriate in the Black Seeds dub track on the stereo.

The antipodean vibe of Flat White is pretty much invisible to locals. To most it just seems like a nice independent Soho Cafe. This means that it can be enjoyed by anyone.

Coffee

The coffees are well made with the milk velvety and the mouth feel is almost perfect. The beans are espresso focused and there is no siphon filter tea-like coffee infusion going on here. This is unashamedly an espresso based cafe.

The velvet is created through textbook quality foaming, swirling and tapping of the jug.  It’s folded through the coffee in a gentle pour that sacrifices some latte art in favour mouth feel and well blended milk. Highly recommended.

Flat White also offer a single origin espresso alongside their house blend. So if your coffee geekdom is just beginning then sharing a single origin coffee alongside the house blend allows you to educate your palate.It tells you everything that they offer tasting notes in a PDF on their website.

Staff

It’s very hard to describe, but the staff at Flat White are almost always in a good mood. So they somehow invite you to be in a good mood to. You know that friend that you always enjoy hanging out with because nothing phases them? That friend works at Flat White.

I’ve heard the occasional complaint that the barista looked down someone ordering a cappuccino or that they didn’t want to make a skinny grande no foam mocha latte with vanilla. Perhaps the issue is that the Flat White staff know that they are good and aren’t really that subservient. If you’re used to genuflection and submissive cafe staff then maybe the crew could rub up you the wrong way. But I’ve been there dozens of times and seen nothing but friendly happy faces.

Atmosphere

The seating is bench style on the perimeter and mini-stools on the other side. To be honest, it is cramped. But there is a certain camaraderie that comes from being swashed in together. The mood at Flat White is quite like Dose Espresso in Clerkenwell and Nude Espresso in Soho, in that it’s not a place designed for lingering. But it’s perfectly adequate for a coffee meeting. Like the tardis, I’m always amazed that as crowded as it is, I can almost always find a seat.

The chocolate brownie and chorizo sandwich are both excellent but the main event is the coffee. I don’t normally like chocolate brownies because they are too sweet. But Flat White’s brownie tastes of dark coco and melts in your mouth.

Flat White is probably a poster child of the third wave of coffee in London and is unlikely to be the source of much upcoming innovation. They started the coffee movement in London and are now like a grand-parent happily watching their teenage grand-kids grow up. Flat White knows what it does and does it well. So as a visitor you can simply sit back and enjoy the ground zero for good coffee in London.

Once you get more into coffee, you might start to ask yourself why you can’t choose the coffee beans that go into your flat white. It’s almost always a generic blend chosen by the cafe and there is no chance for you to learn by tasting different beans.

The same thought occured to architect Hoi Chi Ng and the itch eventually turned into The Coming Soon Pop-up Cafe in Exhibit Gallery at the Barbican. Hoi Chi is using as many different beans as he can get his hands on. This is a definite journey of discovery for him, but he’s inviting all of us to come on the journey with him.

Coffee

Hoi Chi is the first to admit that he isn’t the best barista in London. In fact, sometimes it feels more like having a friend make you a coffee than a clinical expert. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether this is a good or a bad thing.

On the day that we visited, Coming Soon was serving a Korean roasted Coffee Libre from El Salvador and a single origin from Hasbean. Both were good. Tasting the difference between the two really does help educate your palate. If you go with a friend, then try to share because the differences in tastes can be remarkable. If you want to try another single origin espresso then Flat White in Soho also do a guest espresso.

There is unfortunately a reason that more cafes don’t do single origin espresso (plenty do filter). There is an awful lot involved in running more than one bean option and keeping quality high. You need to dial in the grinder to get the right fineness and then adjust it throughout the day. I’ve been told by other cafe owners it’s hard enough running a consistent blend and a decaf option, let alone maintain quality across another line of beans. The final reason is that purists like Reiss from Londinium think that milk in an espresso kills the subtlety of the flavour, so you may as well just use a blend anyway. Even so, I’m excited that Hoi Chi is giving it a go.

Coming Soon has a lot in common with DunneFrankowski at Protien. Both in terms of pop-up vibe but also in terms of coffee tasting, education and appreciation.

Doing it for yourself

If you’ve ever dreamed of starting your own cafe then you need to visit Coming Soon to see what commitment looks like. Hoi Chi runs the cafe out-of-hours from his day job as an architect. His boss knows about the project and is supportive, so the cafe is open before work, at lunch and afterwork. It’s also open on Saturdays but it’s easy enough to tweet Hoi Chi and check whether he’s in.

Robert Kiyosaki once said: “The test of how passionate you are about your business idea is not whether you are willing to quit your job to do it, everyone has that dream. The real test is whether you are willing to keep doing your job, put food on the table and hustle for hours before work, at lunch, after-work and make your business a success by sheer determination.” Hoi Chi is proof that commitment to an idea can carry you through.

Atmosphere

Coming Soon has been featured in Le Cool and a very special review by Giulia of MondoMulia with great photos. Hoi’s passion for coffee oozes through everything that he was doing. He designed and coinstructed the counter himself and the cafe is a true labour of love. Coming Soon has a wonderful website and blog.

As a pop-up cafe the seating is basic, a couple of stools and a bar. But it’s mostly a weekday affair so most people won’t be lingering. The music and mood are a function of the design store and gallery (that the cafe is housed in) so it’s not quite a perfect cafe experience. But again, that’s not what you’re there for.

Antipodean mafia

For me, Hoi Chi Ng is part of a Fourth Wave of modern coffee in London. This will be a Post-Aussie Mafia era. There are now so many Kiwi and Australian baristas and cafes that I’m willing to make a pilgrime to taste Portuguese, South African, Vietnamese or Korean takes on coffee. St Ali, Allpress, Kaffeine and others have re-created the chilled out vibe of independent Southern Hemisphere cafes so well in London that there isn’t a lot of innovation to be seen, other than doing the same formula better. So maybe it’s time for the rest of the world to bring the best of their coffee culture to London?