Our caffeine-fuelled quest to find the best coffee shops in London.
A newcomer to the St Giles scene (they'll be serving iced macchiatos in hell before we casually refer to the area as 'Midtown') is Damson Café.
Moving into a coffee-competitive area — (only minutes from Nude Espresso on Soho Square and Wild and Wood on New Oxford Street — Damson's proprietors have wisely focused on the basics. The coffee served on our visit was from Tanzania's Blackburn Estate, and an espresso promised a "soft blackcurrant flavour" which, truth be told, wasn't something we detected on the palate, but the taste was smooth and not at all bitter.
Visually, Damson conforms to the twenty-teen café dress code, from the chalkboard menu to the wooden table in the centre and the rustic vibe gleaned from the assortment of door and window frames assembled on the back wall. The windows are on rollers that can be slid away to open the café up onto the street, should the rain ever stop. It's easy to imagine this becoming a very popular place come the summer.
Damson Cafe is at 64 St Giles High St, London. You can also follow them on Twitter @DamsonCafe
See previous reviews in the series on the London Blend Map.
