How Emily helped me keep the wines straight at the River Cafe.
To visit the Barbican is to step back into how the future was going to look.
Most know the Barbican Estate through catching a show at the Barbican gallery or theater.
The details are gorgeous, like these beveled elevator openings cast into the wall. You can get in close, see the exquisite craft.
Waterfowl live in the reeds.
Brutalism can be beautiful.
There’s the Barbican Estate, a 35-acre campus in a part of central London flattened by the war. Fewer than 50 people lived in the area; now there are 4000 residents. It’s a village in the city.
The apartments are in demand. It can take years to snatch one up.
Some find the buildings monotonous, inhuman. Fair enough.
The concrete architecture of London.
The city is the home of Brutalism, a muscular, sculptural style that I find fascinating. I’m in the minority on this one.
After the daily QC cupping we had a second cupping with more than 20 selections, English coffees joined by ones from Norway, Sweden, the United States. California and Oslo coffees next to each other.
We all agreed: strong table.
St. Ali is a handsome operation, a comfortably large space in the middle of central London - coffee bar in front, roaster in back, restaurant upstairs.
There’s also a green wall, a two-story expanse of lush plants. Maybe a little showy, but nothing to get worked up about.
Tim, aspirating at St. Ali in Clerkenwell.
It’s a daily event - the coffees are cupped, measured against what else was roasted that week.
Dinner at the Young Turks at the Ten Bells, across from Old Spitafields. It’s an unmarked restaurant on the second floor of a pub, a pop-up that stayed put.
The new HQ for Square Mile Coffee Roasters, off Hackney Road.
It’s organized, lots of room. Large enough for a fussball table.
Rochelle Canteen is one my favorite places to eat in London. It’s in an old bicycle shed behind a school converted into artist’s studios. You enter through the garden, which is hidden from the street by a brick wall. Find the heavy door, press the buzzer.
It’s only open for lunch. The food is direct, generous, delicious, a little like St. John Bread and Wine (the two are related), only with it’s more private and there are more salads.
