The Felix guide to west London coffee shops

Richmond Hill Bakery, Richmond

Reviewed by Gilbert Anthony Jackson, Arts Editor Emeritus

Drink of choice: Large Americano (with hot milk) and a slice of carrot cake
Price: around £3
Serves food? Bakery/breakfast/brunch/lunch options

One goes to Richmond with the usual objective; to see the park in the turn of autumn, where the passage of time lies visible in leafy cohorts of purple and gold. The ascent to the park is surprising for many a traveller and many find their trip to Richmond Park to be equivocal to ascending Parnassus. While the zenith of Parnassus offers spiritual and artistic enlightenment, what remains to be said for the likes of Richmond - the causal West Londoner escapist’s park of choice? As any self-respecting ambler knows, the reward for such a cosmopolitan journey is the beverage at the end of the road. Richmond, like any middle-class neighbourhood, is bedecked with coffee shops and tea rooms, but this one stands out in a rather personal manner. It is nothing out of the ordinary, and does not boast coffee of superb quality, but what it has is the calm, soothing atmosphere of a local bakery nestled down a side street, away from the hurly-burly of tourists and traffic. It is the respite at the end of the road, the journeys end that waits for your return. It offers what every traveller and explorer require, decent coffee and tea of a wide variety and selection, and a hearty portion of edible delights to accompany. It remains one of my favourite places to frequent, with every bite of cake and every sip of delightful coffee saying “Here’s to another adventure. If you can make it here, you can stay here for a little longer.”

Guillaume Coffee House, Gloucester Road

Reviewed by Charlotte Probstel, Societies Editor

Drink of choice: White Americano
Price: £3 - 4
Serves food? Bakery items & breakfast/brunch options

It starts with the most mignon exterior and a deep sea blue logo that pulls you into the shop. A bar of seats along the wall opposite to the baristas to your left invite you to sit as you wait to order your coffee. The menu - extensive and creative. You have the generic orders and then new ones, such as affogatos and Spanish Lattes and hot chocolates with different concentrations, 60 to 85%. They even list different types of tea, such as herbal, black or green on their menu instead of the usual, unspecific “Tea”. Every beverage pretty much comes as a cold alternative, a good thing for you ice lovers. They also serve brunch foods, snacks and Kombucha on the side.

I appreciate every soy latte and white soy americano that I order from Guillaume Coffee House. Their alternative milk isn’t Alpro, which is already a good sign. They serve 9 different coffee beans, and the house blend for the undecided drinkers.
Sure, the price is above that what campus serves, yet the quality cannot compare the exponential difference. The indoor seating in the petite cafe is comfortable for sets of two, and students may study for up to 2 hours during the weekdays but not on the weekend.

Antipode, Hammersmith Broadway

Reviewed by Barnaby Hilton-Royce, Writer

Drink of choice: Mocha
Price: £4
Serves food? An array of options

Nestled next to Hammersmith Apollo, Antipode is one of the vibiest coffee shops you can visit in West London. Its dimly lit interior, very chatty baristas and cool cups make you feel like a real Creative, and the coffee is delightfully enjoyable too. At night it doubles as a bar, and the wine offerings are placed suggestively on a shelf overhanging the bar. Their mocha is dark, rich, and creamy, and you can tell the chocolate is really good quality. Inside seating is a bit sparse however, but its fine when you’re running late to lectures and you need to grab something to wake you up in the morning. I would definitely pay a visit. The chai lattes use real chai, which can be seen at the bottom of the mug after drinking. My lab partner noted the cappuccino is served at the perfect temperature to drink. and they are “generous with the chocolate sprinkled on top”.

Maison St Cassien, Wimbledon Village

Reviewed by Juliette Flatau, Graphic Designer

Drink of choice: Hot Chocolate
Price: £3.50
Serves food? Lebanese food, freshly baked cakes, brunch

Maison St Cassien is one of the oldest independent cafes in Wimbledon Village. Despite what its long-drawn French name may make you think, it is humble and full of life, and always full. With outdoor seating underneath the village bell tower, and tables opening onto Wimbledon stable’s horse-riding treks, it has the best view in the village. The cafe serves reliable coffee, all the basics, and no trimmings. But I don’t go to a cafe to drink coffee (I’m caffeine intolerant), I go for the experience. But it is their food selection that makes it one of the best cafes in the area. Hot drinks are great, but they are even better eaten with chicken shawarma, baklava and a giant slice of carrot cake. The ambience and food put this cafe at the top, with all the locals. It is beloved, and if you’re a regular, they’ll always remember your name.

Blank Street Coffee

Reviewed by Aditi Mehta, Books Editor

Drink of choice: Iced matcha latte, but not blueberry
Price: £3.20 for a latte, hot or iced, £3.60 for a large.
Serves food? Bakery items to takeaway.

Why does everyone I see holding a Blank Street Coffee look so leisurely? For all its faults, one thing I can say Blank Street does successfully is mix you a drink for when you’re in a hurry.

Taste-wise, I deem the drinks a watered-down-uncaffeinated-disease-inducing-syrupy-slurry concoction that doesn’t taste quite like the coffee or matcha base. I understand the need for a pick-me-up to brighten one’s day, but I find the chain’s ‘creativity’ fruitless, and frankly, not even yummy.

Which brings me to the sweet treats. The non-vegan items are not too bad, but indistinguishable from any other coffee shop and probably less value for money than what a Tesco will get you. Their vegan pastries are the antithesis of what I, and probably any baker, deem required for any good pastry, in that I firmly believe they require butter. Dryish, hard, and a bit too flakey - they have been burned.
A stand-alone positive is that alternative milk comes at no extra cost, at least.

I pick my poisons, and unfortunately, VC-backed, mega-chain Blank Street is not my poison of choice.

Kiss the Hippo Fulham

Reviewed by James Desmet, Science Editor

Drink of choice: Latte
Price: £3.80
Serves food? Bakery items

A coffee shop that roasts its own beans from a variety of locations, pricey but sustainably sourced, carbon negative, and high-quality. It’s worth it if you want a good coffee for a reasonable price considering all factors. I would recommend the George Street, their flagship blend. The roasts vary depending on the time of year, so worth visiting year round.

Electric Coffee Co Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush

Reviewed by Mo, I’m Felix

Drink of choice: Flat white
Price: £3.00
Serves food? Yes, bakery items, breakfast/brunch/lunch options made to order.

I enjoy coffee. I really enjoy coffee. Unfortunately, I enjoy it in the exact way you expect me to enjoy it, that is to say, I enjoy it pretentiously. I watch James Hoffman. I have his book. I brew AeroPress for myself (Hoffman method of course). I worked at Caffe Nero for a while, and did a pretty good job as a barista, according to my now former coworkers. One of the best gifts I have ever received for my birthday was a spectacular bag of third–wave Ethiopian coffee with notes of honey, peach, and orange.

Thank you, Vince, very cool. I can ramble about why I believe that a good filter brew is better than espresso. London is a coffee paradise, although I haven’t made the hallowed pilgrimage to Square Mile yet. Nor would it have been eligible for the criteria the editor of this piece, which I will also inevitably have a look at during this week, set out. Otherwise, I would have probably put the Hampstead Redemption Roasters, next to the Daunt Books.

Electric Coffee Co. is a small independent coffee shop on Goldhawk Road. I’m lucky enough to live close by, and I normally go for a flat white. Their special brew is quite good too. The coffee is excellent, and I have bought a few beans from them myself. Inside, there’s decent seating, and for those of you who like to destroy their lives with coffee and cigarettes for breakfast there are often tables set up outside to people watch on Goldhawk Road. The staff are friendly. It’s quite twee. I wouldn’t say its spectacular, but it doesn’t need to be. To be a favourite is to have something beyond objectivity. Electric Coffee is the best because it’s where I have gone with my close friends many times. It was one of the independent first coffee shops I went to in London. I have many happy memories associated with it. There is a warmth in my mind when I think of Electric Coffee, and I enjoy the rustic, slightly bohemian furnishings and odd art. It felt, feels, like a respite from the immense disorder of studying physics. It’s nice to get a break, and in the moments of my life where I needed to get one, it offered its warm embrace to me.

Also, it has pretty decent, competitive prices, and a good menu – matcha is present, but I haven’t tried it to say whether it’s good or not. I suspect it will be.

Imperial College Library Cafe

Reviewed by Feb Senton, Writer

Drink of choice: Iced latte
Price: Too much for what it is
Serves food? Bakery, lunch, & dinner options

The library cafe has the unfortunate quality of huge variation depending on the barista serving you, resulting in slightly burned espresso a fair amount of the time. Back in the day, one of the baristas used to give me latte art of a heart on my coffee, though - I am not sure if this is common practice, but I appreciated the sentiment, regardless.

I used to order oat milk, however oat milk is notably harder to master, so it was regularly burned, leaving an off putting sour taste. Thus, I recommend giving up on your alternative milk dreams and settling for the natural, more palatable taste of cattle milk.

The iced lattes are much better than the hot drinks, as the cold milk stained with espresso is naturally sweeter than burned milk, and much easier to get right. If you order syrup (which there is a huge variety of these days, both sugar free and not) you could even call it a pretty decent iced latte.

The muffins are good, very moist, very addictive - blueberry would be my recommendation. The middling paninis are very overpriced for what they are (packaged and heated), inducing dreadful Costa Coffee flashbacks.

The pricing is not good for a student cafe, that is the main issue. If you order both a muffin and an iced latte, you are going to be spending 5 pounds. For the cost, you may as well go to Blank Street just down the road, and look measurably cooler, or just make a coffee in the Blackett common room yourself for free. It is not good to go during lunch times, mid morning, or in the early afternoon as a pick–me–up because half the student body will have the same marvelous idea. However, it is a useful meeting spot.

Despite this ‘diplomatic’ review, I would bear in mind I wasted around half my life last year in the library cafe, spent sacreligious amounts of money, and used it as the perfect flirting spot.

35nine, 359 Fulham Palace Road

Reviewed by Lila Harrison, Sportswriter

Drink of choice? Dirty iced chai latte
Price? 4.50 (eat-in)
Serves food? Bakery items, breakfast/brunch/lunch options made to order.

The sweetest man serves coffee and food at this coffee shop. Every morning it is clear calibrates his espresso machine testing it, because the coffee is always perfect. Never bitter, never acidic. He uses great syrups and ice, too. He also serves great pastel de natas.

35nine, 359 Fulham Palace Road

Reviewed by Ruby Lydford, Catnip Editor

Drink of choice? Latte
Price? 4.00

35nine is a lovely independent coffee shop, and certainly popular among those who know about it. It inhabits a strip which owns a number of spots for the coffee enjoyer, notably across from the Fulham Palace Gardener café, situated inside the conservatory of the garden centre, and The Gourmet Hound a few doors down, which serves lovely sausage rolls. However, these competitors have their flaws – The Gourmet Hound does not serve iced drinks, and the garden centre café does not have high-quality espresso. 35nine is one of those rare coffee shops without flaws. The staff are sweet and helpful, but not too friendly that they remind me of the suffocating staff at Lush, the espresso is the best I have had in Fulham, and the milk is steamed and frothed incredibly, even for the iced drinks, which is rare. Usually, a coffee shop sacrifices the quality of either iced or hot beverages, but here it is not the case. The bakery items, especially the pastel del natas and the cinnamon swirls are delicious (and they don’t come in an unnecessary metal pastry tin), the latte art is quality, the iced drinks actually feel like something worth purchasing, unlike many places where I think “I could make this with Nescafe and cold milk”, the decoration is tasteful and seasonal – everything is thoughtful and run by someone who genuinely likes their job. Though I have only had the brunch food once, it was memorably delicious. Though I would love to gatekeep this independent star of a spot, this is run by owners who deserve to be successful.

Design by Juliette Flatau and Ruby Lydford
Illustrations by Ruby Lydford