Caffe Forum - Redux

When I’m in London, I prefer to stay in Kensington.  Why?  Lots of cool pubs.  Wonderful restaurants.  Both Gloucester Road and South Kensington Stations are close at hand.  My rule is:  gotta stay near a tube station on the Piccadilly Line.  Hugely convenient.

How so, you ask?  Oh, these pesky questions. Here are a few stations of the many that connect on the Piccadilly Line:  Covent Garden (best shopping in London, with historic pubs nearby).  Piccadilly Circus (The Heart of London, and the junction of Regent, Piccadilly, and Oxford Steets – talk about shopping!).  Leicester Square (pronounced Lester and the center of the theater district, with many pubs, China Town, and the National Portrait Gallery a couple of blocks away). Knightsbridge (Harrods close by, along with The Science Museum).  I could go on and on, but you’d never remember anyway because all you want to do in London is drink fabulous beer.  My tip of the day:  Do a cut and paste for your wives and significant others, then go raise a pint or two or three in every pub you run across while your W’s and S.O.’s are shopping.

But, all that’s for later.  Any good day in London begins with breakfast, and in the misty morning hours, when you’re staying in the Kensington area (which by the way includes the Royal Albert Hall and The Victoria and Albert Museum and Hyde Park and Kensington Palace), the very best place to start the day is the Caffe Forum. (More cut and paste)

Order a full English breakfast (of which I have previous written, you thankless cad!:  http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2012/04/full-english-breakfast-tradition.html), or do what I do and order a flat white (coffee).  What is that?  It’s what the French call café au lait, and the Italians call a cappuccino, but without all the fluff.  Any coffee at Caffe Forum comes with a complimentary croissant, and the pleasant ‘London-is-waking-up’ atmosphere.  Also free. Coffee time is bargain time, planning time, slowly rev-ing the engine time.

Yes, I have also written of the Caffe Forum before, but it’s such a special place that on lazy mornings, sipping a coffee, no matter where I am, I dream of sitting at a wooden table, the rattle of dishes in the background, the scurry of wait staff around me, the aromas of fresh eggs and bacon permeating every corner, the young professionals patiently standing in line adjusting their ties or their skirts, the rush of cool air every time the front door swings open, the idle conversations in a dozen languages, as husbands and wives cheer each other and calm their recalcitrant children, and the elderly sit peacefully alone, reading their newspapers, with everything accompanied by the clamor and swirl of traffic on Gloucester Road.

Caffe Forum is a very personal London in a nutshell.  You really must go there.  Remember:  FIVE pubs nearby.

Morning Coffee in London

I come to London often.  The usual tourist checklist languishes, forgotten, unless something special draws me, such as the flood of poppies at The Tower of London on Remembrance Day, or museum showings that beg to be seen.

Today, nothing harnesses me to a schedule.  It’s a blessing to dawdle in the great expanse of this city’s ebb and flow.  Without the pressures of time and need, I luxuriate in the moment.

The counter where I place my coffee order is rather tall and bordered by a large, glass display.  Croissants, small spit loafs bursting with cheeses, hams and tomatoes, as well as sweet rolls, sit in perfect rows.  The jeans and black t-shirt staff are an eclectic collection as well: tall, Italian men, short Thai women, all of them polite, but unsmiling.   The Thais glide through the restaurant like apparitions, their only noise a small click as the saucers find the tabletops.

I settle into a side table for two.  My coffee is what the Brits call ‘flat white.’  The Spanish would say café con leche and the French, café au lait.  I am in the same coffee shop I always come to.  Italian and quaint. A mix of tourists and regulars queue up, place their orders and either take away their caffeine in paper cartons, or sit and have it brought to the table.   Service is rapid.  Thick, white porcelain cups, resting on equally thick porcelain saucers, dot the dark wooden tables. A bare semblance of conversation floats in the air.  Could be English, Italian, Greek, Arabic, or any of a hundred other languages.  I catch brief whiffs of the morning patter.  Weather.  Destinations.  Appropriate dress.  My Spanish is as rusty as a weathered nail.

Outside the shop, a sandwich signboard reads, Free Croissants to the First One Hundred Customers, but in fact, croissants come with every morning cup I’ve ever seen in the place.  I munch mine and contemplate the day.  Flakes of my crispy roll float to the table.

Soft music, with catchy rhythm trills in the background.  “You treat me like a stranger and it feels so rough.”

The walls feature evocative color photos of men, women, and tourist scenes, pasted together in random order, at odd angles, and doctored with bright colors.  Under them runs a thick dark border, peppered with white writing, expounding witticisms.

Canadian Capitalism:  You have four cows.  An American company buys your cows, then sells them at a profit and declares bankruptcy.   Communism:  You have four cows. The government confiscates them.  Two cows die from mismanagement and you are given only as much milk as the government thinks you deserve.

Beside me, an Italian mother and her ten year old son enjoy their breakfast.  The kid has baked beans on toast and starts to pick up the whole bundle.  The mother quickly intervenes to squelch this approach and the kid soon wrestles with a knife and fork.  I slide a little farther away.  I’ve seen experiments like this go awry.

Ever had an English Breakfast?  Eggs, English bacon, baked beans, sausages, grilled tomato, grilled mushroom, white bread toast.  A delicious, self-inflicted culinary punishment.

These days I stick with a flat white and croissant.

On the street, London is just waking up.