Kaffeine, Fitzrovia, London

Best coffee in Fitzrovia. Love this place. Nice cakes too.. :)

Went here for the First time today, had a fancy cheese salad baguette and it was AMAZING!!
Fresh, tasty and definatley worth the £4.50. Also ordered a coffee and was pleasently suprised to get given a large pot of freshley made coffee, very strong flavour but very tasty and very natural. Would recommend to anyone.

Tucked away in a little side street, this is one of London’s hidden gems. Excellent coffee with quick and friendly service. They usually have some delicious cakes, and some with more unusual flavours that just somehow work (goat’s cheese and mint muffins, for example), this is really to be recommended. Its strongest point is that being off the beat-and-track means it is never so busy that you won’t be able to find a table to sit at.

Met Sarah, a fellow Qyper, here a few weeks ago! It's a little small, but very friendly, and the coffees are delicious. I had a hard time abstaining from the delicious-looking pastries. The Portuguese Tarts, in particular, brought back memories of Lisbon. Will definitely be back!

Seeeeeeeeriously good coffee, great service, mouth wateringly lovely biscuits, cakes, muffins and tarts, totally delicious and warming porridge in the winter, a lovely atmosphere and without doubt one of the best - if not the best coffee hang outs in London, or dare I say the world??? Yes, I dare. I just did, so there!

Proper antipodean coffee made by proper antipodeans.

Friendly staff, great space. Go here a lot.

Only been here a couple of times, but now hope to make this my regular coffee shop. The coffee is exceptional and made with real care.

Through the London Coffee Guide and a review here I got to know about this place. As all I read was just good, and as it is also the winner of Best Independent Coffee Shop in Europe 2010, I simply had to go there and see myself.

What can I say? It is a nice place and the service is great! I would assess the service as much above most other cafés I know.

The interior is simple, yet beautiful and light. The coffee is a pleasure and the food looks good. I just had a pain au chocolat, so now I cannot say much about the food in general, but at least the pain au chocolat was delicious.

A place you should not miss if you like to go for a coffee in London!

For me, this was the best coffee I've ever had in London. I came exclusively to try their flat white (with soya milk, as sadly I can't drink milk) and was really impressed. I liked the decoration and the "soul" of the place. It was the last day for one of the member of staff, before going on maternity leave, and they were collecting tips just for the new baby. And farewell messages were written on the blackboards. Those are the kind of details I love of local businesses. I work myself in a small coffe shop whose owners just want to turn it into a chain, and it's being just awful. I hope Kaffeine can keep the same spirit, quality and standards they have now, it's such a fantastic place. Oh, and I didn't try the food, but it looked so delicious. I'm looking forward to my next visit :)

I have to confess that I wasn't paying as much attention to the coffee here as I usually do when I'm on my own, but, from what I can recall, the flat white I had wasn't bad. The Portuguese tart was divine, even if I did scoff it down rather quickly, having not had any lunch.

The tables looked cramped but could fit four people comfortably, and I liked the assortment of coffee books I could see on the counter and would have taken one to read had I not been with someone.

It's definitely a nice, relaxing, unintimidating place for a date, although it was also very busy, so we felt we had to move on after a while, just to give other people the chance to try out the coffee. I'll definitely return here under less 'stressful' circumstances so that I can check out the place more fully.

UPDATE: Just a quick update to say that the portuguese custard tarts are unbelievable. They're just perfect - squidgy, custardy and not too sweet. Don't leave without trying one!

I visited Kaffeine for the first time this afternoon after hearing my colleagues gush about it NON-STOP since it opened. The coffee, the cakes, the atmosphere...Kaffeine can do no wrong apparently.

And I'm pleased to report that I really enjoyed my little stay at this coffee place. The staff are uncommonly friendly, service was quick despite it getting very busy very quickly and it's a tad cheaper than other coffee places in the area.

I didn't try the coffee (though I've heard it's excellent) but my brownie was very good (but not the best in London like a few Qypers would have me believe).

As lovely as the atmosphere was, I couldn't imagine staying here for too long - the utilitarian decor and wooden benches doesn't lend itself very well to cosiness and long chats. But it's good to know that I can get a decent flat white with a smile from somewhere so close to where I work.

Friendly service, stylish interior, great coffee, and relaxing service.

Five stars for this Fitzrovia neighbourhood gem :)

Full review and photos at http://thehappinessprojectlondon.wordpress.com

So I continue my search for the best coffee shop in central London using my Criteria and hit-list. And I finally made it to Kaffeine, the oft-praised antipodean coffee shop raved about by various twitterites including Tim Hayward. So me and the gorgeous Penelope, identical twin to Argentine Aileen, went there for lunch a couple of weeks ago and I thanked my lucky stars yet again for having lovely friends working close by for weekday gossip-filled lunches, the highlight of my working week.

Anyway, the food looked great so I bought a slice of quiche with salad, which was extremely yummers although at £6 on the pricey side. It was a chilled out relaxed place BUT the tables at the back were at the wrong height – you either have to bend down to reach your food/coffee or sit with it on your knee, not very practical. God that was dull, sorry.

Anyway, on to the coffee. I ordered a flat white which was £2.20 ish. They have a super duper “Synesso Cyncra espresso machine” which they are very proud of – when I was taking photos of the coffee shop they asked me if I wanted to photograph the coffee machine. I said no but only because Penelope had run outside in embarrassment and I did look like a complete dick yet again taking photos and it’s hard to pull off “excited tourist” in a suit. Anyway the coffee is Square Mile and apparently the beans are from El Salvador and Costa Rica. It was nice and creamy, tick. Good use of coffee art, tick. Tasty tangy taste, tick. And with a nice little kick, tick. BUT it was only lukewarm and since I’ve been getting into my coffee, this is my new pet hate. Coffee should arrive HOT so then you can sit around, holding it in your hands and looking pensive / sexy, and then sipping slowly, taking your time and thinking or reading or gossiping. If it arrives lukewarm you need to pretty much down it before it gets even colder which ruins the whole seduction. It may be that the fancy pants coffee machine means the coffee cools too much (and I know there is a bit of a wait for coffee), or because it was a Friday lunchtime and busy so may have sat on the counter, but anyway it needed to be hotter for my liking. And the low table at the back thing (dull).

So, for that reason, my favourite central London coffee shops remain Store Street Espresso and Wild & Wood. But Flat White is yet to come. Oh yes

well, well, how come I didn't go to Kaffeine earlier.

It's a lovely place with heaps of fresh looking sandwiches and yummy cakes.
I was after lunch so eventually only enjoyed coffee (boy, it was lovely) but I am definitely coming back.

Lovely staff, and it looks you will be lucky to get a table, worth trying though.

I go out of my way to get my flat white fix at Kaffeine when I am in London. The service here is magnificent; the regulars are greeted by name, and the barristas know their order by heart. The coffee? Excellent: perfectly roasted beans transformed into a good strong flat white with just the right amount of foam, and served with pride (a good fern or heart in the foam).

I've never eaten here, but the cabinet is stuffed with delicious looking fayre.

It's taken me long enough to get around to reviewing it, but I'm yet another Kaffeine evangelist, and I'm not even much of a coffee-drinker!

Although I've heard nothing but rave reviews about their coffee, having a sweet tooth and propensity to bounce off the walls like a child that's eaten too many blue Smarties when having imbibed too much caffeine, I usually opt for the creamy hot chocolate instead.

The chocolate brownies are deliciously rich and indulgent, with a texture that's the perfect balance between crumbly and gooey. It might be a controversial stance, but for me they beat Lantana's hand down.

And then there's their breakfast pots - gloriously restorative tubs of granola, yoghurt, jam and other ingredients that are tasty and guaranteed to give you a much-needed energy boost after overdoing it the night before. They've saved me from desk-naps on many an occasion, and they're delicious too.

Add all that to the friendly, fast service and the central location and I've got all the excuses I need to come back on a regular basis.

Absolutely fantastic coffee. You won't get better anywhere else.

Whether it is decaf skinny latte or a machiatto, this is the only place you should go to for your coffee. -I regret that I’ve had to leave the area due to work. I’ll miss this place terribly.-

Expensive but worth it!

**EDIT**

I'm back and I walk the Loooooong way to work every day so I can go to Kaffiene and get my morning coffee! Where else will you get a rosette on your take away coffee? Really!

I am a regular at Kaffeine every morning and because of my ungodly working hours am often their first customer of the morning.

The coffee is amazing (its in small cups to retain the taste!) and all of the barista's make an equally good flat white with a strong rich flavour and a hint of bite that tells you that you are actually drinking coffee and not a Starbucks foamed milk.

Without fail all of the staff now greet my by name after the owner Peter actualy took the trouble of asking it at about my 10th or so time in the cafe!

I've taken a few of my English colleagues there at lunch time as well and they are amazed to taste what good coffee should taste like, in contrast to what the multitudes of pseudo Italian cafes around Gt Portland Street produce.

I can honsestly say that the combination of great coffee and friendly staff make my morning.

Andrew

Truly great coffee place. They actually know how to make a great coffee, the interior is intimate and really the kind of place you can just sit down and spend a lot of time. The best part of the place is the staff though, who really know how to make you feel welcome and almost part of the place.

They have some pastries as well that are quite good to fill your sugar needs while you're fulfilling your caffeine cravings.

Highly recommended for spending some time having great coffee. Can't imagine anything better than grabbing the window table, have an excellent coffee while observing people scurrying like ants under their umbrellas outside in the rain. Truly one of my perfect lazy saturday afternoons.

I'm off caffeine at the moment, which meant so much of what this joint has to offer was sadly out of my reach - CURSES!

Nethertheless I was struck by the friendliness of the staff (they seem to really give a sh1t, which isn't always the case, sadly), the freshness of my sandwich and the largeness of my Anzac biscuit.

Clever use of the space at the back end as well. Like it.